


Suave & Complicated

by BlueMorpho (OldToadWoman)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (all regular characters are fine), Angst and Humor, Awkward Sex, Canon Compliant, Canon Compliant through Season 10, Case Fic, Cheesy Excuse for Smoochies & Sex, Dean/OFC het (briefly), First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, Hugs, Humor, Idjits, Kisses, M/M, Magic Kissing Ritual, Magic Plot Crystal, Mild Horror, Oblivious Dean, POV Dean Winchester, Sam/OFC het (implied), Sex, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Snark, So Much Snark, True Love, True Love's Kiss, Wincest - Freeform, fart jokes, mention of a dog that died before the story began, mild violence, people die too but only dogs need warning labels apparently?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-12 12:58:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 56,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4480040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldToadWoman/pseuds/BlueMorpho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone loves a good sex pollen fuck-or-die story, right? Love potions, fertility rituals, the-demons-made-them-do-it and whatnot. But what if nothing forced them? What if they discovered a magic ritual that was really useful, but not even exactly necessary, and all Sam and Dean had to do was just kiss? And what if that still changed everything?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline is vaguely after season 10, but with no attempt to solve the season-ending cliffhanger so this takes place in a nebulous timeframe where everything is somehow back to the status quo of hunting standard monsters. The Pennsylvanian Pond Monster was originally intended to be an homage to Stephen King's "The Raft", but then I got lazy and just stole the monster outright. (Also, I consider myself a Cas/Dean shipper and I have no idea how my most explicit story to date ended up being Wincest, but the voices in my head insisted so here we are. I promise the next story will be Cas/Dean.)

♥ ♥ ♥ 

"Wait, that's it?" Dean interrupted. "That's all?"

The witch paused mid-monolog and rolled his eyes. As arch-villains went, he was lacking a little something in the menace department, though he ranked fairly high on the nuisance scale.

The case involved love spells. Love spells _plural_. Some spells turned people into hippy-dippy love-the-world flower children. Some seemed a bit more like lust spells and there had been a few particularly notable cases involving public indecency. Some people fell in love with the very next person they set eyes on. Some people dumped their long-term spouses and set off on quests to reconnect with high school sweethearts or, in one case, a first kindergarten crush. Some people snapped back to normal after a few moments and some were still wandering around in a state of perpetual twitterpation weeks later. Basically the witchy-dude was flinging every love spell he knew out there just hoping one of them would work for what he needed, but apparently none of them did.

Also, for the record, Dean knew the word "warlock" but every time he called the guy a "witchy-dude" he pulled a bitch face _almost_ as satisfying as Sam's, which made it worth playing dumb.

" _True love_ is surprisingly difficult to replicate," the witch huffed, as if Dean clearly just did not understand how hard his life was.

"That would probably be because of the 'true' part," Dean suggested. "The name sort of implies you can't just fake it. Have you tried online dating?"

"Do you honestly think that—"

"So what does the Heart Stone actually _do_ once you've got it charged up?" Sam asked, causing the witchy-dude to do another put-upon eye roll at the additional interruption.

The man sighed and repeated without enthusiasm, "It will vanquish my enemies. I told you that already. Look, I didn't hurt anybody. A few people got a little loopy and a few a little frisky, but no one did anything actively against their will so I don't think this is really a situation where hunters need to get involved. Okay?"

"But vanquish how? 'Vanquish them' like 'kill them'?" Sam asked.

"So, if _we_ were able to charge it, we could vanquish _you_?" Dean asked.

"No, not kill," the witch said. "Just defeat. It's suppose to drain your enemy's drive, anger, rage. It's the power of love..."

At this point, he held the so-called 'Heart Stone' aloft with a flourish and it still just looked like a boring gray rock to Dean. It was about the size of a ping-pong ball only squished a bit flat like a good skipping stone.

"...vanquishing the power of hate!"

When neither Sam nor Dean seemed impressed, he added in frustration, "I'm practically a good guy here!"

"Except for the part where you've bewitched half a town in a failed attempt to get a girlfriend," Sam said.

"Hey, I got plenty of girlfriends. Okay? Plenty. I must have kissed twenty women over this thing. It just didn't work. The lore is... I thought it was just being a bit hyperbolic, but I guess it really does need all that storybook romance crap."

"Have you tried any men?" Sam quipped. "Maybe you're really repressed and just don't realize it." Sam gave Dean a weird side eye for absolutely no damned reason as he said that.

The comment earned them another satisfying scowl from the witchy-dude, but Dean felt they were ignoring the important part and he repeated his question. "If _we_ can charge it, can we vanquish _our_ enemies?"

The witchy-dude nodded. "It supposed to be infinitely rechargeable too."

"Cool." Dean raised his gun. He didn't aim it. He just wanted to remind the guy that it was there and didn't require a magic kissing ritual to make it work. "Gimme."

Sam shot him an odd look. "You got somebody I don't know about?"

"We don't need anybody else. He said all you need is two people who really love each other. We got that."

"I...I don't think that's how it works," Sam said. "Like he said, you can dismiss a lot of it as hyperbole, but the lore put a lot of emphasis on, y'know, passion and soul mates and unbreakable bonds and ... okay, yeah, but _passion_..."

"The Heart Stone can only be charged by True Love's Kiss," the witchy-dude said in his I'm-about-to-start-monologuing-again voice. "A pure, unshakeable love, a love between two people who would scale mountains for each other, go to hell and back for each other, who would—"

"Huh." Sam shrugged. "Okay, can't hurt to try, right?"

The witchy-dude scoffed and tossed Sam the rock. "Fine. Knock yourselves out. If you can get it to work, it's yours. But when you're done swapping cooties with your brother and it still doesn't work, it's mine and you two can just scram, right?"

Sam held the rock out towards Dean. Dean holstered his gun and placed two fingers on the stone. The instructions hadn't mentioned whether they both had to be touching it or not—all the lore said was that the couple kissed "over" or "near" or "with" it (translations varied)—but it was best to play it safe.

They leaned in and—although Dean had thought it would be awkward and half-expected to get a lip full of Sasquatch nose—they each tilted their heads just the right way at just the right moment to barely avoid a nasal collision and then they had their lips gently pressed together in a chaste kiss.

Something snapped and Sam and Dean both flinched back and stared at the stone which was still gray and mostly boring except now there was a very small crack that Dean was _almost_ sure hadn't been there before and the crack was glowing with a faint purplish light that Dean was _definitely_ sure had not been there before.

Witchy-dude looked pretty horrified.

"So, are you feeling vanquished?" Dean asked.

"Mildly disgusted, yes. Vanquished, no."

"We probably have to kiss longer?" Sam suggested, though he didn't sound entirely certain about it.

"Right, like it's probably at one percent charge," Dean said, nodding.

Sam and Dean leaned in for another kiss despite the witch's protests. "No, you had your kiss and it wasn't enough. Magic rituals are not like plugging your phone into a charger. Kudos on the brotherly love being enough to get a spark out of the thing, but that's it. You're done."

The stone didn't do the snap thing this time, but Dean could sort of imagine that it crackled a little bit. He kept his lips pressed to Sam's and snuck a peek at the stone. Was it a little brighter than before? Sam swallowed and, this close to him, Dean could actually hear the wet sound behind dry lips. It was weird. Weirder, it made Dean feel compelled to swallow as well. Did his mouth always water like this? How many buckets of spit did he swallow a day without even thinking about it? The stone flickered as another crack appeared and, yeah, it was definitely brighter now.

Dean couldn't stop himself from breaking the kiss to gloat at the witch. "It's working."

"Congratulations. A little bit longer and you'll have enough power to vanquish a cockroach."

Dean turned back to find Sam frowning at the stone. "Maybe..." Sam said and then trailed off.

"What?"

"It's working. Sort of. But. Maybe."

Dean just raised his eyebrows and waited. He'd normally be mocking Sam at this point, but he didn't want to give witchy-dude the satisfaction.

"Maybe it _is_ about just kissing longer, but maybe it's about kissing _differently_." Sam licked his lips. Possibly coincidence. Possibly nervousness. Possibly he was trying to tell Dean something.

Dean stared at Sam's lips and tried not to think about what Sam was suggesting. "We both have guns. Can I just shoot him? It would be a lot faster if I just shot him. Or you could shoot him. It's your turn. Please, shoot him."

Sam frowned down at the stone in his hand a moment longer. "We fight a lot of things that guns can't kill. And … imagine having a non-lethal weapon. We could save so many more people if we didn't have to worry about collateral damage."

"Or at least not kill quite so many," Dean admitted.

"Right," Sam said. "We could still be _effective_ without any unnecessary deaths. We're _not_ shooting him."

In the end, they shot him.

They didn't really mean to and it wasn't even terribly high on the list of Winchester fuck-ups, but while they were distracted witchy-dude tried to grab the stone out of Sam's hand and when Dean punched him in the face—which was _totally_ called for at that point—the dude tried to hex them and they'd seen more than enough of what this guy's hexes could do.

His death ended all the spells that hadn't already worn off on their own. The aftermath was going to keep a few divorce lawyers busy for quite a while, but _that_ was not their problem.

♥ ♥ ♥

Sam had stuck the stone in his pocket and Dean had decided they were just going to forget about it, but a few days later, he glanced over and Sam was fidgeting with it in the car. They were back in their suits for another case—which was likely werewolves if what they just saw in the morgue was any indication—the same suits they'd been wearing when they faced off with the witch and Sam must have found the stone in his pocket.

"It's still glowing," Dean noted. "You think it holds a charge indefinitely?"

"Probably," Sam said. "We've seen spells triggered that have been in place for hundreds of years. Magic isn't really like an old battery."

"You think it's enough to, uh, vanquish anything?"

"I wouldn't want to bet my life on it."

"We should probably test it on something before we track down that wolf," Dean said.

"You want to use it against werewolves?" Sam asked.

"If it works. I mean, what with Garth and all, werewolves are sort of like … I don't know. I just feel bad killing one if we don't have to and packs always get messy. If our killer is a lone wolf I have no problem taking him out. Frankly, I have no problem taking him out period. He's a killer. He's going down. But if he wasn't a loner, we could have an angry pack to deal with and it would be cool if we had something effective against them besides silver, y'know."

"Yeah, yeah. I agree. Totally."

But the werewolf turned out to be a loner after all. They talked to Garth afterward and he confirmed that no one would be seeking to avenge him. Garth didn't personally know the guy, but the general feeling in wolf circles was "good riddance" so it was all good.

At some point, Sam stuffed the stone in the glove box of the Impala and they both forgot about it or at least didn't talk about it which was what Winchesters generally meant when they said "forget".

♥ ♥ ♥

They got pulled over by a cop at a speed trap in a little nothing town. Dean hadn't even been speeding by any rational person's definition, just cruising along at a casual 47mph in a 45 zone when he crested a small hill and found a police car just waiting at the bottom next to an abrupt 25mph sign. No one can lose twenty in speed on a downhill without standing on the brakes and he wasn't about to do that to Baby. It was the sort of thing you could fight in court, if the Winchesters could afford to show up in court, which they really couldn't, and besides it wasn't paying the _fine_ (which Dean had no intention of paying anyway), it was the _principle_ of the thing that got to him.

"Really?" Dean snarled. "Really?"

Sam was reaching for their license and registration (and making sure the names on them matched) before the cop even got out of his cruiser.

"Do you know how fast you were going, son?"

Dean bristled at the 'son'. The guy couldn't have been a day older than he was. Hell, he might not have been any older than Sammy.

"Well, _sir_ , seeing as how I was coasting downhill in a forty-five moments before your little speed trap, I'd say a bit north of 45 would be a safe bet."

The cop scowled. Sammy said something in Latin that he didn't quite catch. Dean noticed a purple flash out of the corner of his eye. And then the cop laughed.

"Yup, forty-seven. I tell you what, I appreciate a driver who knows his situation. You'd be amazed how many people don't have a clue how fast they were going _or_ what the speed limit is." The cop took the paperwork that Sammy was shoving across Dean who watched the transaction with a skeptical squint.

"Everything in order, officer?" Sam asked politely when the officer hesitated.

"Not really," the man said. "It's the damnedest thing. The dates say this was just issued this year, but the state hasn't printed these on blue paper for over three years now."

"Is that so," Dean asked, already mentally calculating the best moment to make a break for it.

"Yup. Best get that taken care of. The current ones are kind of yellow like, only a bit orangey, y'know. What's that color called? Named after a weed."

"Dandelion?" Dean asked, feeling a bit off-kilter.

"Goldenrod?" Sam suggested.

"Goldenrod, that's it. Whoever printed this up for you, didn't use the right color form. You'll want to get this re-done so it doesn't cause you any trouble in the future. It looks a little _suspicious_." He handed the registration back to them with a wink.

"Uh, goldenrod, got it," Dean said.

"You seem like some nice folks so I'm going to let you off with a warning. Mind your speed through town. Other side of town, keep an eye out for a big billboard pointing the way to the flea market. There's a cruiser hiding behind that. But once you cross the county line though, you're good to go, pedal to the floor. Sheriff over that way has a rather lackadaisical view of speed limits."

"Uh, thanks."

"You boys have a nice day."

"You have a nice day, too, officer!" Sam called cheerfully after him as he walked away.

The cruiser pulled out and headed back where they'd come from, presumably to return to his spot next to the 25mph sign to wait for the next out-of-towner.

Dean glanced over at Sam. "It worked."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, holding up the plain gray stone, "but it looks like that was all the juice it had. I guess we'll have to, um, recharge it again."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "Sure. Later. When we stop for the night, we can..." Dean waved vaguely and then repeated, "Later."

♥ ♥ ♥


	2. Chapter 2

♥ ♥ ♥ 

There was no point dragging things out, so as soon as they walked into the motel room, Dean closed the door and whirled on Sam before he'd even had time to put down their takeout. He held the kid's head in both hands and went in for a clean, dry kiss. But Sam hadn't been ready for him and started to say something so his mouth was open just a little bit and for a fraction of a second, just a fraction, he made contact with his tongue before Sammy got with the program and clamped his mouth firmly shut.

The memory of Sam's tongue burned in his mind. It was all manner of weird, except for the part where it wasn't at all. Sam's tongue should feel completely different than anyone else's tongue. He should be gagging on moose germs. But the really shocking part was how perfectly normal it felt.

Sam shoved him away roughly. "Dude! Warn a guy!"

"Was that enough, you think?" Dean asked.

"God, you're a moron, Dean."

"What? Get these things over with quick. It's just more awkward the longer you wait."

"Not as awkward as having to do it twice because _the stone is still in the car_!"

"What the hell did you leave it in the car for?!"

Sam just waved the takeout at him. "I had the food! I was going to grab it when I went back out for my bag! Jerk!"

"Bitch," Dean said.

Sam sat down at the small table and started unloading their burgers and fries.

"Uh, stone?" Dean said pointing at the door.

"I'm hungry."

"Can we just get this over with before you stuff your cakehole?"

"I need to get the taste of you out of my mouth," Sam grumbled.

"Which you'll just need to do again after we kiss again!"

Sam froze and didn't meet Dean's eye and Dean had to admit that that was a strange thing to scream at someone and also the first time either of them had used the word "kiss" since they first acquired the stone weeks before. _Saying_ it was almost weirder than _doing_ it.

Dean grunted. "Fine! I'll get it. You left it in the glove compartment?"

Sam managed to nod while simultaneously giving him the _are-you-stupid_ face.

As he stomped out the door, Sam yelled after him, "And bring my bag in while you're out there!"

♥ ♥ ♥

So they'd kissed again and the stone had barely hissed that time and only the faintest of purple lines showed up and you couldn't even really tell it was glowing at all until they turned the light out for the night at which point it became a nightlight, a judgmental nightlight mocking them with its purplishness. Sam said it was because Dean was being a Mr. Crankypants thus undermining the true love requirement and Dean said it was because Sam tasted like french fries thus being really freaking distracting.

Sometime around four in the morning, Dean got up to pee and found a cockroach in the bathroom because that's exactly the kind of classy joint they stayed at. Remembering the witch's taunt, he decided that pest-control was a more productive use for the stone than a nightlight and it wasn't like the thing had enough of a charge to be much good on anything else.

He stalked back into the room and grabbed the stone and was heading back towards the bathroom when he realized he didn't know the magic words.

"Psst, Sam, dude, what are the words?"

Sam didn't even alter his breathing, so Dean tried throwing a pillow at him. He knew better than to try and wake his brother from a deep sleep. The Gigantor had a tendency to come up swinging. The pillow-flinging at least prompted a mild snuffle, so Dean tried again. In a lilting sing-song he called, "Sammy, oh, Sammy. What are the magic words?"

"Pleaf," Sam mumbled into his pillow.

"No, dude, not 'the' magic word. The magic words to make the stone work."

"Kish."

"I know we have to kiss to charge the stone up. I promise we'll recharge it in the morning. But what are the words to activate it, to vanquish an enemy. You said something just before the cop went all nice-nice. It sounded like 'suave and complicated' which I'll admit is a great description of yours truly but it also sounded more Latin-y."

"Kish n hug," Sam said.

"Hug?"

"Mmmhmmm."

Dean gave up on Sam and trudged back to the bathroom. If it didn't work, he could at least use the rock to smash the cockroach.

The bug had scuttled back behind the toilet so it took Dean a few seconds to locate it. "Gotcha. Okay. Suave and complicated. No? Suave et complicated! Suavium et complicatedium! The power of hugs and kisses compels you! Hocus pocus!"

Sam would later call him an idiot, but the stone itself didn't seem to be all that picky about Latin grammar because it flickered and went gray and smooth, all the cracks vanishing. The cockroach on the other hand didn't vanish at all. Squishing it would involve crawling down by the toilet and reaching around the porcelain and that thought only reminded Dean why he'd gotten up to use the bathroom in the first place. "All right, little bug. You just stay there while I take a whizz, but as soon as I'm done, you and I need to have a little chat."

He at least got to pee in peace, but as soon as he was done, the roach ran up the counter and then just sat there on the edge of the bathroom sink. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought it was looking at him expectantly. The logistical problem was that now the bug was between him and where he'd set the stone down.

"Okay then. Plan B." Dean headed back into the main room and grabbed Sam's shoe, because if anyone's shoe was getting bug guts on it, it wasn't gonna be his. But when he turned back around, the roach was right there, _right there_ on the motel carpet.

"Dude, are you following me?"

The cockroach did not nod or chitter or do any kind of interpretive dance to indicate it understood him, but when he paced experimentally around the motel room, yeah, the bug was definitely following him.

"Aw, crap," Dean said, finally. "This thing doesn't defeat your enemies. It makes them your buddies. I… I am too tired to deal with this right now. Just stay out of my shoes, okay?"

He achieved a fitful sleep full of odd dreams about Sam and also Baby had been turned into an ambulance somehow but even Sam knew it was still Baby and they could sleep in the back while the cockroach drove which was cool but then it got weird because the cockroach kept putting love songs in the tape deck and then it started to rain or maybe that was actually Sam in the shower. There was a brief moment where he was consciously aware that all he had to do was open his eyes and he'd be awake, but it seemed like too much effort and he drifted back to sleep and didn't remember any more of his dreams.

Dean awoke some time later to the smell of coffee. "If that coffee that I smell is for me, I will love you enough to charge that stone back up," Dean said without opening his eyes.

"What did you do with it?" Sam asked. "I found it empty, uh, drained, whatever in the bathroom when I went to take a sho... Shit, Dean, there's a cockroach on the pillow right by your head!" And the big bastard was laughing, although admittedly in a horrified sort of way.

"His name is Ralph," Dean said, sitting up and reaching out for the coffee.

Sam had recoiled slightly and was holding Dean's coffee well out of range. "Ralph?"

"Dude, coffee me. I can't have this conversation without caffeine in my system."

"Ralph?" Sam repeated, hesitantly handing the coffee over.

"I had to call him something. If you have a better suggestion, I'm all ears. Ralph here's all antennas. Lay it on us."

"Dean, what the hell?"

"I tried to use our glowing paperweight to vanquish a cockroach. It didn't work. He likes me now."

Ralph skittered down the bedspread in Sam's direction.

"Oh, look, I think he likes you too. The point is that I can't squash something that's following me around like a puppy. It's just wrong."

"Everything about this is wrong."

"Everything about our _entire lives_ is wrong," Dean agreed. "But here we are."

♥ ♥ ♥

Ralph wandered off unnoticed sometime before they left for breakfast, which was convenient because Dean didn't think a cockroach following them into a diner would go over very well. Sam was frustrated that Dean didn't remember what time he'd used the spell, so they couldn't be sure how long it had taken to wear off.

"I really don't think you should be using a cockroach as your benchmark anyway," Dean said. "And the stone didn't have much of a charge to begin with."

"We should test it out. Make sure we really understand how it works before we rely on it in a life-or-death situation." Sam wrote something down in his notebook and Dean glanced over to see, "Cockroach at low power = following, 3-5 hrs?" which was written below "Human (police, non-aggressive) at moderate power = friendly/helpful, time?" all beneath the header "Suavium et Complexus".

"Ha! Got the suavium right," Dean said triumphantly. He muttered "complexus" under his breath a few times to remember it. "What's that mean anyway? Smooth and complex? The stone is smooth at no power and then it gets complex cracks as it charges..."

He trailed off unable to convince himself. His musings almost made sense, but it didn't quite fit. Dean's knowledge of Latin was pretty much limited to memorizing and repeating things, but a little had sunk in over the years. "Those word endings, those are nouns aren't they? So it's _a_ complex, sure, but _a_ smooth? What's a 'smooth'?"

Sam didn't even look up from his eggs, so Dean pulled out his phone and started searching the web.

"A sweet? A suavium is a sweet? Like a piece of candy?"

"That would be the Hershey translation, yeah," Sam said, with a smirk. "Another translation for suavium is _kiss_ , Dean."

"A kiss and a complex," Dean said, with a laugh. "Fitting."

"Complexus also refers to a connection, an enfolding, an embrace..."

"A hug," Dean repeated. "The spell is just fancy Latin for kiss and hug."

"Basically, yeah."

"By the power of hugs and kisses," Dean mumbled, dragging the last bite of his pancakes through the puddle of syrup on his plate.

Sam looked up and seemed about to say something, but instead just looked at Dean funny while he licked the syrup off his fork.

"What?" Dean asked.

"So I've got a list of some possible hauntings to check out. I don't expect the stone to work on a specter, but it's worth a try. Garth passed along some intel about a vampire nest in Ohio, which is on the way to a rumored pond monster in Pennsylvania."

"Pennsylvanian _pond_ monster?"

"That's what he said. Anyway, it's all low-level stuff. Garth was going to assign it to less experienced hunters, but I said we'd handle it. They're all good cases to test the stone without putting ourselves in too much danger."

"Sounds good. Just tell me which way to aim the car and we're on the way."

Dean paid the bill and, out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw Sam using lip balm, which made him feel bad about making a joke about chapped lips earlier because really they weren't that bad.

In the Impala, he put the keys in the ignition but didn't turn the car on immediately. "So... uh... just in case we get pulled over or something on the way... you got it?"

Sam pulled the stone out to show Dean—plain, gray, and boring as usual—and dropped it back in his shirt pocket. Then he licked his lips, which made Dean reflexively lick his own lips even as he was thinking, _Dude, stop doing that_ , and then they leaned toward each other. Sitting next to each other in the car made the angle a bit awkward and Dean reached out to touch Sam's face, just to sort of steady his target, and Sam's nostrils flared as he made his ready-for-battle face.

"For the record," Dean said, not entirely sure if he was saying this for the stone or for Sam or for himself, "I actually do love you even if you are a doofus sometimes."

"I love you, too, even if you're a doofus _most_ of the time," Sam said.

"Shut up and kiss me."

Sam was still laughing when he kissed him. His brother tasted like cherry lip balm and smelled like that vanilla shampoo that he used and Dean started laughing too so they weren't so much _kissing _as they were snuffling in each other's faces with intermittent lip contact.__

__Sam broke away when his laughter became too much and Dean had to admit to himself that he couldn't catch his breath either._ _

__"Man," Sam said, wiping his eyes. "We really suck at this."_ _

__"Check the stone. That's got to count for at least _something_."_ _

__Sam pulled the stone out of his pocket and it had more cracks than they'd seen before and the cracks were glowing _bright_ purple._ _

__"Huh." Sam held the stone out to Dean for closer inspection._ _

__Dean had pretty much left Sam to deal with the stone up to that point so he hadn't ever really examined it carefully. As he turned it over in his hand, he realized the glowing purple lines weren't cracks at all. Rather than crevices, they actually bulged out like veins._ _

__"Guess it was good for _somebody_ ," Dean said and Sam looked a little taken aback. "Dude, check it out. It gets purple and vein-y when it gets excited."_ _

__"Seriously, Dean, are you twelve?"_ _

__"Is it just me or did it get a little bigger too?"_ _

__"Ghosts, Dean. Interstate. East. That way."_ _

__Sam snatched the stone back and put it in his pocket and, as Dean pulled the Impala out onto the road, Sam pulled out his notebook and scribbled something else down._ _

__Dean wondered if there was another page in there with notes like "french fries + arguing = minimum charge" and "cherry lip balm + declarations of love = max charge." If they were going to experiment with the power of the stone, did that mean they needed to experiment with the kissing too? The thought made his stomach do a weird little flip._ _

__♥ ♥ ♥_ _


	3. Chapter 3

♥ ♥ ♥

The stone didn't work on ghosts as well as they might have hoped, but the fact that it worked at all was kind of cool. It didn't stop a vengeful spirit in Arkansas, but it seemed to weaken it considerably. A ghost in Louisiana vanished entirely, but that spirit had been more moodily-hanging-around than full-on haunting to begin with. In Mississippi, they settled a poltergeist down from ragefully violent to merely sulkily slamming doors. In all three cases, it bought them enough time to exorcise the spirit in question. It seemed to be wearing off near the end with the poltergeist and that was just twenty minutes later, but the stone had been a pretty weak charge that time and poltergeists were clearly not as suggestible as cockroaches.

Charging the stone seemed key, but they were still pretty inconsistent in their results. They hadn't been able to replicate the bright glow that they'd managed in the diner parking lot. At one point (before facing off with the poltergeist), Sam had even set a timer and they'd studiously pressed their lips together for five excruciatingly weird minutes and barely gotten anything better than the dimmest glow.

The stone no longer made snapping sounds as it charged, so if he had his eyes closed—which he'd tried a few times only in an attempt to help himself focus—Dean couldn't even tell if it was working or not. Sam theorized that the crackling sound had been the stone awakening from a long dormant state.

The trip north towards the vampires was uneventful and they were still half a day's drive out when Dean announced, "We need to get drunk."

"Sure, Dean," Sam said, in what Dean felt was a patronizing tone. "After we clear out the vamp nest, we can celebrate with an old fashioned bender."

"No," Dean said. "Before. That stone is barely glowing at all. We've got to charge it up _properly_ before we face a vamp nest, which means we need to get _very drunk_."

Sam didn't argue and even helped look up a motel adjacent to a bar so they could get blotto and not have far to stagger afterward.

Dean ordered whiskey shots and downed two in quick succession while Sam sipped on a rum and coke. "Dude, I don't care if you drink rum, but shots, man, shots. The point is to get drunk, you don't want to water it down with cola."

"Look, I'm not really comfortable with getting shitfaced in public, okay? I don't think we should both let our guard down at once like that. If you want to get wasted, fine, but I'm going to keep my head clear enough to make sure we get back to the motel safely."

"So, you're like the designated pedestrian? You're kidding me, right?"

Sam sort of glared at him and he sort of glared back. Sam had another rum and coke while he ordered more shots.

"Pity they don't have a pool table," Dean mused. "Pool hustling is always a great way to start a bar fight."

"You _want_ to start a bar fight?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. Sam, we've got results on three ghosts, one human, and a _cockroach_. And we don't even know what happened with that cop. For all we know, he snapped out of it and was ready to kill us ten minutes later. I say we test it again before we face a vamp nest."

Sam pulled the stone just far enough out of his pocket for Dean to see the smooth, gray surface. "Do you remember why we were getting drunk in the first place? Starting a fight now _won't_ give us an opportunity to test the stone."

Dean shuffled his chair around the table to sit next to Sam and then pulled him in for a kiss. It was a bit sloppier than usual because the whiskey was starting to kick in and Sam tasted like rum which was a nice change and Dean got a little dizzy, but that was probably also the whiskey.

When he pulled away, Sam still had his eyes closed and he licked his lips before opening his eyes to stare at Dean. There was something in Sam's face that Dean couldn't put his finger on, but it felt like a victory. Also, his pocket was glowing.

"Your pocket is glowing," he told Sam proudly.

Sam glanced down and then clamped his hand over the top of his shirt pocket. They both looked around to see if anyone had noticed and Dean saw a group of guys at the dartboard snickering at them.

"Oh, look, we might be able to start a fight after all," Dean said. "Hi, guys!"

"Dean, no," Sam said, scrambling to tuck the stone away somewhere less noticeable.

Dean ignored Sam and headed straight for the guys at the dartboard. "How much do you guys want to bet that my boy Sam here can beat _all_ -y'all at darts?"

It turned out to be harder to pick a bar fight than Dean had expected. Sam was skilled enough at darts to win most of the rounds, but not so skilled as to make anyone feel cheated. None of the guys could be enticed to bet more than they could comfortably lose anyway.

Dean even tried to egg on the snickering by grabbing Sam's ass a couple of times and calling him sweetie, but that annoyed Sam more than the guys, who actually seemed to be putting some effort into not making a big deal out of it.

"Aw, fuck this," he finally told Sam. "We need to find a rowdier bar. One with biker gangs or skinheads or some shit."

"Or we could just call it a night."

"You are _so_ boring."

"Come on, 'sweetie'. Time to get you into bed," Sam said steering him towards the exit.

"I wonder what _that_ would do to the stone," Dean said with a laugh.

"What?!"

"So boring," Dean repeated as Sam dragged him into the parking lot.

"Dude, how much did you drink in there when I wasn't looking?!"

"I'm not drunk! Please, you've seen me drink. This? This is barely buzzed. Barely."

"Then why are you being so weird?" Sam demanded.

"I'm not being weird. This situation is weird. Your hair is weird."

Sam huffed and stalked off across the parking lot to their motel room. Dean followed feeling vaguely annoyed and wishing they had hit a liquor store so they could get drunk for real.

As soon as he was in the room, Sam demanded, "What do you mean my hair is weird?"

"Did I hurt your feelings?"

"Oh, shut up. Never mind."

"Your hair is pretty," Dean said and, okay, he might be a tiny bit drunk for real because that was one of those things he'd never planned to say aloud. "Like freakishly pretty and I know I make fun of it, but that's because it's... it's pretty and..."

He sort of ran out of words and just reached out and petted Sam's hair.

"Oh my God," Sam laughed. "I am never letting you live this down."

"I'm, uh, gonna go shower before I say anything else stupid."

"Good plan."

And without really thinking about it, Dean tilted his head up and kissed Sam on the lips, a quick peck goodbye as he left the room. _Brilliant, Winchester,_ he thought to himself. _That was so much better than saying something stupid. Idiot._

Sam was pretending to be asleep when he got out of the shower, which he decided to just be grateful for.

In the morning, Sam brought him greasy hangover food and coffee and didn't mention the night before, at least not until Dean had finished eating. And then he didn't _mention_ it exactly, he just pulled the stone out of his pocket and twiddled it in his fingers until Dean noticed.

"Is that the same stone?" Dean asked, knowing the answer, but feeling like he needed to ask the stupid question anyway.

"Yup."

"It's blue."

"Yup."

"It was purple last night."

"Yup."

"How...?"

"I think you leveled it up with that second kiss," Sam said.

Sam's eyebrows added an unspoken, _Do you want to talk about this?_ And the answer to that was, _Hell, no_.

The stone had twice as many veins as they'd seen so far and they were all glowing _blue_ , a slightly purplish blue, but definitely blue. Maybe it was just due to the veins bulging out from the side, but, all joking aside, it really did look bigger.

"Looks like we're going to kick some vampire ass," Dean said with a forced smile.

"Yup."

"Just, y'know, _tomorrow_ when I can fight without puking on anyone."

"Yup."

♥ ♥ ♥

In hindsight, they _really_ should have found a biker hangout and tested the stone in a bar fight before they tackled a vampire nest. It wasn't as if they couldn't handle a vampire nest without the stone at all. They'd certainly done it before and could do it again. But they'd sort of expected the stone to give them more of an advantage and hadn't been counting on the stone's one big weakness, a weakness which a good bar fight would have shown them immediately.

They went in with machetes and decapitated the two lookouts quietly with no problems. They even located a victim and cut him free before anyone raised the alarm, but the guy was down too many pints to walk out on his own and that's when every vampire in the place (thirteen remaining by Dean's count) suddenly came at them.

"Suavium et complexus!" Sam shouted and the stone flashed bluish-purple.

And at least twelve vamps kept coming at them. Sam and Dean were so busy dodging fangs that at first Dean didn't even notice the thirteenth vamp in the mix until the vampire pulled Sam free just as Sam was about to get bitten.

"Guys! Chill! I'm sure we can work this out," the vamp said as his nest-mates moved in for the kill.

The other vampires were momentarily distracted by this turn of events and Dean got the head off of one of them and Sam got another. So then the odds were two-to-eleven, except that they were really three-to-ten … make that three-to-nine as buddy-vamp tore another vampire's head off before Dean could finish tabulating their odds. And those were numbers they could handle, so in a relatively short period of time, it was just the three of them left standing.

"So," buddy-vamp said, "you guys want to hit a movie or something?"

"Uh..." Dean gestured at Sam with his machete, an unspoken, _Should we kill him?_ but Sam shook his head.

"We have free HBO and On-Demand back at the motel," Sam said.

"Right," Dean said. "Are you caught up on _Game of Thrones_?"

The vampire even carried the rescued victim himself and helped drop him off at the emergency room before they headed back to the motel.

Buddy-vamp hadn't, in fact, seen _any_ of _Game of Thrones_ , but was more than happy to check it out. It was rather surreal, especially since, as much as he enjoyed it, buddy-vamp insisted on rooting for the wights and White Walkers.

But Sam kept nixing the suggestion every time Dean wanted to kill him because Sam wanted to see how long it would take for the spell (their strongest yet) to wear off of a vampire.

The answer turned out to be one and a half episodes, when he suddenly lunged at Dean. Sam had to take his head off himself.

Dean gave himself a moment to catch his breath and come down from the adrenaline rush before he announced, "We _are_ starting a bar fight before we even think about going after the pond monster."

"Agreed. Absolutely."

♥ ♥ ♥

They recharged the stone almost immediately. Dean didn't want to admit it to Sam, but he was still a little shaky after so many near misses in one hunt. And when Dean was scared, he always re-channeled the emotion as anger. So he got off a few crabby _I-told-you-so_ s, but Sam kept apologizing between kisses which made sniping at him very unsatisfying. Sam's default emotion was guilt and the dude needed to cut it out.

"I'm fine. Look, let's just wash up and get out of here."

And they'd both showered. Not both in the shower at the same time, but both there in the bathroom, talking through the shower curtain, planning the next hunt and the next training exercise and debating what to do with the decapitated corpse lying on Dean's bed.

It was something they'd done a thousand times and it had never seemed weird before. Hell, his dick had even chubbed up in the shower before with Sam just a few feet away talking about whether they should stay on the back roads or risk the interstate to get to the next hunt faster. When they had time, Dean never even felt self-conscious about telling Sam he was about to jerk one out and that it was Sam's choice if he stayed or not. He never stayed. He always said something about Dean being gross or crude and usually Dean was hollering after him that he wouldn't be this cranky if he'd just get his own rocks off more often.

It was never weird.

Only now it was weird.

Because in between washing his face and hopping in the shower for a thorough hose-down, he and Sam had been _kissing_.

Because at that very moment, Sam was _talking_ about kissing.

Because Sam was a little fixated on the fact that the stone was still only purple and they couldn't manage to get it blue again.

Because Sam had stopped hinting and was now finally saying, "Maybe we should try a little tongue action?"

Because Dean's dick was at full attention and screaming _Kiss this!_ and a pervy little voice in the back of Dean's reptile brain agreed with it.

So for the first time in years, Dean was _embarrassed_ by his own bodily functions. Dean only had two settings where erections were concerned: he was enthusiastic about them or he ignored them. (Dean could ignore cracked ribs and sprained wrists and the occasional stab wound. Ignoring an inconvenient boner wasn't that difficult.) Being embarrassed was like flashing back to puberty. Embarrassment was not an option.

"Dude, don't you dare use up all the hot water before I've had my turn."

Enthusiasm was also not an option.

Dean turned the water off and reached out for a towel. He normally wouldn't waste much effort on modesty, taking time to drip dry a little before wiping down. The cheap motel towel barely reached around his waist, but that at least gave him the excuse of keeping his hand in front of his crotch, hopefully making it look like he was just holding the towel in place, rather than holding his erection in place.

"Shower's all yours, bitch," Dean said, as lightly as he could, trying to step past Sam quickly.

But, damn him, Sam was apparently ready to put his tongue-action theory to the test, because he had the stone in his hand and he stepped in Dean's way and started to lean his big, floppy head down.

"Not now, Sam," Dean said and this time there was no way to keep the shakiness from his voice.

Sam wasn't stupid. He startled back and his eyes went straight to where Dean's hand was pressed into the towel. "Oh."

"Later," Dean said.

"Later," Sam agreed.

Dean escaped into the motel room while Sam took his shower, because at that point he'd rather be with a decapitated vampire than standing in a steamy bathroom with his brother.

He dressed, took one bag to the car as a casual way of checking the area, and cursed under his breath when he confirmed the presence of the police camera that was facing the parking lot. Damned security cameras were popping up everywhere. On the plus side, so much security footage meant very little of it was actually being scrutinized, but they definitely couldn't leave a body behind in the room.

He rummaged in the trunk until he found an empty beer bottle, a roll of duct tape, and Sam's ugliest hoodie. By the time Sam was out of the shower, buddy-vamp was ready for the cameras.

"Damn it, Dean! I liked that hoodie!"

"I'll buy you a new one."

"Seriously, man."

"We got a police camera _right there_. We gotta Bernie-walk him outta here. It's the only way."

Sam huffed once more before admitting, "Okay, the beer bottle in his hand is a nice touch."

"Thank you."

"How secure is his head?"

"I looped the duct tape under his armpits before I put the hoodie on him. He should be solid. You know, _ish_. Don't jiggle him too much."

It worked beautifully and Dean was almost a little disappointed that no one passed by as they "walked" their "drunk friend" to the car and he said as much to Sam as they drove away. "Do you ever feel like we're just playing _Hamlet_ to an empty theater? Like, that was a brilliant performance right there. Do we get applause? Where's our curtain call?"

Sam offered him a sarcastic slow clap. "Consider it a dress rehearsal. Weird as it sounds, that's probably not the last time we could use that trick."

They found a spot in the woods where they burned the body. They slept in the car while the fire smouldered down and Sam complained about how that much Febreze was probably not good for your lungs, but agreed it was better than corpse stink. In the morning, they buried what was left and set off on their next quest, which was a laundromat. The pond monster could wait.

They hit paydirt with a truck stop, a real honest-to-God truck stop—the kind with a diner and a convenience store that had as many aisles dedicated to auto parts as to junk food—with laundry facilities in back and coin-operated showers up the stairs above. Dean hadn't seen a coin-operated shower since they were kids some place back east. Now that he thought about it, this could be the same place, though obviously the price had gone up. He remembered gathering up loose change and making little Sam stand in front of him so they could both wash the grime off for fifty cents. Now you had to buy a token from the cashier at the front counter for five dollars and he sure as hell never would have paid that much back then. For five dollars, he would take Sam behind somebody's house and wash him off with a garden hose.

The cashier suggested they each buy extra tokens and promised to refund any they didn't use. "Water shuts off as soon as the time is up. You don't want to come back out here with a head full of shampoo needing to buy another token. It's happened."

They agreed, but Dean was still determined to not use any of the extra tokens just on the principle of the thing. They could have just gotten another motel room and he could have showered for as long as he wanted. He resented the very idea of timed showers.

They changed into clean clothes first, which felt backwards, but they wanted to be sure to wash the smoke out of the clothes they'd worn last night. They filled up three washing machines—they could have crammed all their clothes in one, but Sam suggested this was a good opportunity to get the stink out of their sleeping bags as well—and then headed upstairs to the showers. They were met with a row of doors and Dean was increasingly convinced that this was the place they'd been decades before. Each door had a small sign that said "occupied" or "vacant" and he knew before looking that the sign was attached to a sliding bolt so that the correct word was visible depending on whether the door was locked or not.

There were three vacancies in a row, but two men stepped through the middle door and the "vacant" became "occupied" with the sound of the lock being thrown.

Sam chuckled under his breath and raised an eyebrow when Dean glanced over. Sam picked the closer door and Dean stood there a moment just staring as the door closed and locked behind him. Dean's brain was a half second behind on the joke. Two men, one shower, right. _Not_ doing it to save pocket money or conserve water.

He took the next door over and thought about how many times he must have seen that happening as a kid and never noticed. A truck stop was two different worlds in one. It was conservative America, God-fearing blue collar workers, retirees passing through in their RVs, and minivans full of families on their way to and from amusement parks. And it was drug deals and prostitution or just free sex, but the kind where people didn't bother exchanging names or phone numbers.

Dean was raised in this world and never really noticed that sometimes it was the same macho rednecks teaching Dean how to "be a man" who were also slipping off together into back rooms to do vague "grown-up" stuff. And as he grew older Dean had figured out about the drugs and the hookers and all, but for a long time he'd just kind of assumed that there were more women in that back room than could really be accounted for.

There had been no shocking revelation. Over time, he just gradually picked up on more and more until he just somehow knew without knowing _how_ he knew. The most important rule was that you didn't talk about it. In the bright light of the diner in front, you acted like a man and if another guy couldn't drink his coffee black you called him "a girl" and it didn't matter who had been sucking whose dick earlier.

Dean stripped down and smeared shower gel into his armpits before he even put the token in to turn on the water. No point wasting water before he needed it. A voice in his head whispered that shower gel was girly, but it was easier to pack than bar soap because you could quickly wipe the tube dry and shove it in your bag and go. He and Sam both used it. At least Dean's was a tube labeled shower gel. Sam used some crap in a bottle that said "body wash" on it and that _had_ to be meant for girls.

He squeezed out another dollop of gel and—carefully avoiding his urethra because that was a mistake Dean was only going to make _once_ in his lifetime—smeared it over his nether regions, primarily for honest hygienic reasons. Sleeping in the car had left him feeling sweaty and gross. It felt good though and he was overdue and Sam was safely two doors down, so he was definitely going to go for it.

Oh, God, he could hear them. Not the actual slap of bodies—though his imagination had no problem filling in that detail—but the undeniable moaning and grunting of two men determined to make each other (or at least themselves) very happy.

It was impossible to not fall into the same rhythm, his hand working his dick in time with the grunts and soon his breath was huffing out to the same beat. Okay, a little weird to be sharing his me-time with two complete strangers, but it was better than Sam being out there talking about leveling up the stone with tongue.

God, Sammy. Sammy still wanted to try touching tongues, on purpose, not just a little bit on accident. Sammy was in the other shower _on the other side of these guys_. Sammy was listening to this very same live audio porn.

Was Sammy jerking it too? Was Sammy's hand following the exact same rhythm his was at right this very moment? Was Sammy stroking his own dick while thinking about swapping spit with his brother? Shit.

The secret to getting off quickly—obviously not always the goal, but given Dean's lifestyle, too often it _was_ the goal—was to not question where the images in the spank bank came from. Sam could mock him for it, but he favored cartoon fetish porn for a reason. Cartoon girls with fox ears didn't trigger any real-world associations for him. No guilt. No wistful could-have-beens. No baggage whatsoever. Just gravity-free boobs and eternally-lubricated orifices. But this time around, the image in his head was fleshy and real and needed its own damn _luggage cart_ to carry all its baggage, but, fuck, it was kind of hot anyway.

What would it feel like to get his hands on Sammy's chest? No jiggle at all, barely any give, all muscle and solid, but how fun would it be to make those nipples pebble up? Shit, yeah. Why was he thinking so much about Sammy's chest when there was a serious chance that Sammy's dick was getting actual hands-on attention right this very second?

But that image was vague and blurry. He'd seen Sam naked plenty. Caught a glimpse of a hard-on a handful of times even, but he'd never gotten a really good look at one of his brother's erections. Never been able to just stare and take in the view. Never got a good clear image of the contours. His mind drifted back to Sam's chest, because he knew exactly what that looked like, what it felt like, had been up close more than once, stitching up cuts that were a little too deep to let heal on their own. It was so very easy to imagine his tongue on that chest, on those nipples. God, yeah.

He wanted to lick Sam's neck and he had no idea why his mind jumped up, even farther away from the actual goods, but, yeah, he wanted to lick Sam's neck and nuzzle in his hair and hear Sam's voice when he came. God, he wanted to make Sam come.

He wanted to make Sam come more than he wanted to come himself. Because he deserved it, he needed it. Sam really, really needed to get his rocks off a lot more often than he did. And not just self-serve, no, not even some hot one-night stand. Sam needed someone who would make love to him, someone who appreciated him, someone who knew exactly how fucking awesome Sam Winchester really was.

Fuck, yeah!

Shit!

Dean bit his lip, determined to not add his voice to the moans next door.

As orgasms went, it wasn't particularly satisfying. A wave of emptiness crushed his afterglow immediately and if it weren't for the evidence of his spunk on the shower tile, he would almost be able to believe that that hadn't just happened. He shoved a token into the slot and let the water wash that evidence away.

The water was already good and hot and the water pressure was more impressive than Dean had expected. He was at least going to get his five dollars worth. The guys next door were still going at it, but when Dean tilted his head under the water he couldn't hear them at all. Maybe Sam had had his head under the shower the whole time. Maybe Sam hadn't been listening at all. Maybe Sam had heard and was grossed out by it. Dean felt dirty and not in the fun way.

There were no towels provided, but there were two air dryers, one mounted high enough on the wall that Dean only had to squat a little bit to get the worst of the moisture out of his hair. The other was mounted at convenient ass height, which was weird, but it worked. He had to hit the button on both dryers several times before he felt dry enough to put his clothes on, but soon enough he was dressed and feeling almost normal again.

When he walked out, he glanced at Sam's door. It said "occupied" but he wasn't sure if that meant his brother was still in there or if he'd already finished and someone else had taken his place.

Dean returned his extra tokens and got his refund and, when he did, he asked the cashier if his "friend" had been back down yet, and, damn, why would he feel guilty telling the clerk that Sam was his brother? The clerk couldn't possibly know what Dean had just been thinking in the shower.

Sam was apparently spending all of his tokens, or maybe just taking his time blow-drying his damn mane, because he hadn't been back down yet. Dean left word that, when Sam showed his stupid face, he should meet him in the diner.

Dean ordered coffee and read over the breakfast menu about five times before settling on the house skillet. A few of the other menu items sounded better, but everything had stupid cutesy names like "Big Daddy Skillet" and "Honey Bear Hot Cakes" and Dean swore that someone had specifically named the menu after porn and he was just _not_ saying _I want a Big Daddy_ out loud. The house skillet would be fine. It didn't matter anyway. He was torn between feeling ravenous and not being sure he could keep his food down.

Sam slid into the booth before his food arrived. His hair was still fairly wet and there were damp patches on his shoulders where the water had dripped. Sam had obviously given up on bending under the hand dryers.

"You look like Snape," Dean told him.

Sam laughed and stole Dean's coffee even as the waitress arrived to pour him a cup, which ended up being Dean's new cup since Sam didn't offer it back.

Dean had the decorum to wait until the waitress left the table before he called Sam a bitch. Sam just smiled at him smugly and didn't even bother to call him a jerk back, which is how Dean knew that Sam had definitely just been beating off in the shower because that was the only way that Sam was that happy and that sleepy looking at the same time after spending the night folded up like a pretzel in the back of the Impala.

Sam tilted his head sideways like a giant soggy puppy. "You got a little something..." he said pointing at his own lip. And then he smiled even brighter and said, "No, my mistake. You must have taken a hit to the lip last night and I just didn't notice." Then the self-satisfied bitch just _sprouted_ dimples at him.

Dean ran his tongue over his lower lip which was sensitive and a little swollen to one side and, yeah, that probably showed. Sam could tell that he'd bitten his lip and not last night in the fight, just now in the shower, and yeah that little smirk said Sam knew damn well that Dean had yanked one out.

The waitress brought Dean's food and Sam just ordered toast, but proceeded to steal more than half of Dean's skillet and every bite looked like an obscenity.

Dean excused himself and went and moved the laundry out of the washers into the dryers and left Sam to clean the plate. When he returned, the dirty dishes had been cleared and Sam was licking his coffee spoon for no damn reason. Even the waitress gave the Wookie a funny look as she poured Dean another cup.

"Can I get you gentlemen anything else?" she asked. "Would you like to try our cinnamon rolls?"

"We would _love_ to try your cinnamon rolls," Sam said.

And, yeah, normally Dean did not say no to sweet baked goods, but he was suddenly faced with the nightmare that in moments Sam would be licking goo off his fingers. "Actually, I'll pass," Dean said, stopping the waitress who was already walking away to get the rolls. "I should probably go keep an eye on the dryers. Make sure the sleeping bags don't bunch up."

"The laundry will be fine, Dean."

The waitress agreed. "Those dryers take a lot of abuse and they just keep going. And our cinnamon rolls are what we're known for."

"He'll have a cinnamon roll," Sam said firmly and the waitress skittered off before Dean could cancel the order. "Man, what's wrong with you? We've got nothing to do but kill time until the laundry's done. Relax. What are you so on edge about this morning?"

"What are you so _happy_ about this morning?" Dean snapped and immediately regretted it, because he didn't want Sam to actually answer that question.

Sam smiled at the waitress who was already returning with a plate of two giant cinnamon rolls slathered in icing.

As soon as she left, Sam leaned across the table and whispered, "Check this out." Sam produced a wrinkled bag of M&M's with the torn end folded over. He opened it just enough for Dean to look at the real contents. The stone was glowing brightly inside. Bright blue.

Blue. Not purple. Not a purplish shade of blue. Not even a pure blue. It was more of a greenish shade of blue. Not quite green, but definitely more than blue. Sam had leveled the stone up again _without him_.

The world spun out from under him and Dean just stared back up at Sam who was looking _so_ proud of himself. He honestly looked like he expected Dean to pat him on the head and give him a cookie.

"Damn, son. That's, uh..." Impressive? Was he supposed to congratulate Sam on hooking up with someone in a fraction of an hour? " _How?_ I didn't think you could even work that fast. You usually spend two hours just working up to asking a girl for her number. For you to hook up..."

"What?"

 _Oh, God._ It wasn't just a hook up, was it? _True love_. It had to be true love to work. Sam had somehow stumbled across his freaking true love in a truck stop. "Congratulations?"

"You're a moron," Sam said and closed the M&M bag and stuck it back in his pocket. He picked up one of the cinnamon rolls and, oh, yeah, immediately started in licking icing off his fingers.

"Where is she?" Dean asked. "Aren't you going to introduce me to her?"

Sam just rolled his eyes and kept eating.

"To _him_?" Dean asked, a flare of jealousy balling up in his stomach. He could deal with a woman. He could. Really. Good for Sam. He deserved to be happy and, no question, there were things a woman could do for him that Dean just wasn't equipped for, but … a dude? What could another dude give Sam that Dean couldn't? Okay, okay, maybe there were things another dude could do that Dean _hadn't_ , y'know, _yet_ , but... if Sam wanted it, he _could_ , and that should count for something.

"Jeez, Dean, will you chill out and eat your cinnamon roll."

"'M not hungry," Dean said and his voice did _not_ shake and he did _not_ sound meek or defeated or sulky. He was just a little quieter than usual because he wasn't feeling so well all of a sudden, that was all.

"Oh, my God, Dean, it's just you, okay? Did you honestly think I leveled the stone up by banging a complete stranger? That I just happened to stumble across the love of my life in the—what?— _twenty minutes_ I was out of your sight?"

"The prophecy didn't say 'love of your life,'" Dean absolutely, positively did _not_ snivel like a heartsick schoolgirl.

"What? I didn't even hear the end of that. The prophecy what?"

Dean cleared his throat and tried again. "The prophecy didn't say 'love of your life.' The prophecy just said 'true love.' You can have true love with more than one person. I get that. I'm not mad if you found somebody, Sammy. I'm happy for you. Really."

Sam just stared at him for a moment, half-eaten cinnamon roll in one hand, icing smeared on the side of his mouth.

"Dean," he finally said, slowly, a patronizing tone creeping in, "I did not have sex with anyone just now. I did not kiss anyone else. It was just you and me. Okay?"

"I wasn't even with you."

"We were close. No more than, what, ten, twelve feet apart? And look me in the eye and tell me you weren't _right there with me_." And he made a very unsubtle gesture with his free hand, made all the more lurid by the fact that his hand was covered in white icing.

Dean looked Sam in the eye, for possibly as many as five seconds before he picked up his own cinnamon roll and took a bite.

"This is good," Dean mumbled with his mouth full.

"Uh-huh." He could hear Sam's smirk even without looking at him.

"So, this'll make charging the stone easier," Dean said. "You know, if all we have to do is..." and he made the mistake of looking at Sam's hand, just as Sam swiped his giant moose tongue over his palm.

"Doesn't work like that," Sam said.

"We could _try_."

"Dean, do you want me to count up all the times I've masturbated within ten feet of the stone since we got it? It doesn't work." Sam glanced up and caught Dean's shocked expression. "What? Just because I don't talk about it all the time like you, doesn't mean I don't _do_ it. I'm not a robot, man."

"So, uh, why did it work this time?"

"I think it's because we were _both_ , y'know, _synchronized_." Sam did that damned gesture again. He'd already licked all the icing off, but Dean knew Sam's hand was still sticky and that somehow meant it was still kind of perverted.

"We're finding some skinheads. We're starting a fight. And I get to punch a few people before you put the whammy on them."

Sam shrugged. "Sure. Whatever."

♥ ♥ ♥


	4. Chapter 4

♥ ♥ ♥ 

Sam and Dean sat on the sofa and stared at the gray stone. Sam pointedly set it on the coffee table in front of them, but said nothing.

Finally, just to fill the silence, Dean said, "Well, back to square one then."

They hadn't found any skinheads and all the biker bars would have taken them out of their way. Dean was all for going to a sport bar and insulting the local team, but, once he'd calmed down, Sam was able to convince him that it wasn't worth using up a good charge to pick a fight with humans. So they agreed to head straight to the pond monster in Pennsylvania.

But they'd stopped at an Outback Steakhouse on the edge of Pittsburgh because Sam was hungry and Dean mistakenly thought that they couldn't possibly run into trouble in a faux-Australian restaurant. Indeed, things had gone fine, right up until the bill came and Sam's credit card was declined.

No biggie. It wasn't the first card they'd maxed out. Overextended credit was the American way so it wasn't even suspicious. But the waiter had noticed that the name on the second card that Sam had given him didn't match and he didn't buy Dean's excuse that one of the cards was his because he'd clearly seen them both come out of Sam's wallet.

That earned them a visit from the manager, a friendly woman who apologized for the confusion and offered to sort this out quickly by the expedient method of asking them their names. Dean had no clue which two cards Sam had handed over and, judging by the blank look on Sam's face, Sam hadn't actually paid any attention to that detail either.

About then a big galoot taller than Sam, and _at least_ two Sams wide, stepped up and asked the manager if there was a _problem_ , which everyone involved, likely including the manager, was able to translate to, _If I beat these guys up for you, would I have a chance at getting your phone number?_

Dean did a quick inventory of his wallet and came up with twelve dollars in cash, a Starbucks giftcard with an unknown balance, and a certificate for a free ice cream sundae at Biggerson's. Sam added seven crumpled dollar bills, $2.25 in quarters, one shower token he'd forgotten to get refunded, and a pack of gum. They were still going to have to dine-and-dash, but at least the waiter wouldn't get _too_ screwed.

The manager backed off when they stood. This wasn't something she was going to fight over—she was probably just going to call the cops on them after they'd left—but the big guy placed a warning hand on Dean's shoulder and, with a nod to each other, the brothers agreed that he was the main threat.

"Suavium et complexus," Sam whispered, flashing the stone at the man.

The manager was the only other person close enough to catch the flash of the light, but it wasn't as if she was going to suspect it was a magical artifact. She probably thought Sam just had some novelty flashing keychain or something.

Sam and Dean were both already turning to run for the door, but the hand on Dean's shoulder had only squeezed tighter. For a moment, Dean thought the stone hadn't worked, but then the big guy slapped him on the back and said, "I got this, fellas."

The man produced a wad of twenties. The manager still looked suspicious but accepted the money and walked away. Not worth hassling paying customers over something she likely no longer considered her problem.

The big guy was named Steve and he lived alone, but he had a pull-out couch that the boys were welcome to use. He also had a big screen TV and his apartment complex had a swimming pool, all of which they took advantage of. Dean got a sunburn and Sam made fun of his freckles, but Steve kept them in wine coolers and pizza all weekend and into the following week. He even _apologized_ for having to leave them alone in his apartment when he went to work on Monday.

Which is how Sam and Dean ended up drinking girly wine coolers (Steve didn't like beer) on Steve's sofa at 9 o'clock in the morning and staring at the stone.

After a moment, Sam got up and set up his laptop on the coffee table next to the stone. "Okay, so far we've got... Pale purple mesmerizing a cockroach for several hours, but a poltergeist for only fifteen to twenty minutes. Purple turning a cop friendly and calming a ghost, both non-aggressive though and we don't know how long either spell lasted..."

"You have a spreadsheet now?" Dean asked.

"Duh."

He did. The kid had a spreadsheet. He'd even filled in the first column of cells with a background color to approximate the stone's strength.

"A blue charge only worked on a vampire for a couple hours, but a slightly stronger greenish-blue charge has been working on a human for days."

Dean shook his head. "I think Hodor might be throwing off your stats. We don't know that the charm is actually still working on him."

"Dude," Sam said, pointing at the half-empty wine cooler next to the stone.

"Maybe the charm is still working, but maybe he's just really lonely."

"Okay, valid point. He had no reason to be angry with us _or_ afraid of us. So, when he snaps out of it...does he really 'snap' out of anything? Or does he just move forward thinking it's perfectly normal that he just made two new friends?"

"Look, we could stick around a few more days if you really want to be sure, but, charm or no charm, I'm not comfortable wearing out our welcome and taking advantage of the guy like this for much longer. Plus, y'know, pond monster's waiting."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, we should hit an ATM, pay Steve back, hit the road..." Sam did not add, _Charge the stone_ , but they both turned and stared at it again. It was understood.

"Right. So." Dean put his wine cooler down on the table and wiped the condensation off his hand onto his pant leg.

He kept both of his hands on this knees as he leaned in towards Sam. Sam put his hands on both of Dean's shoulders and then tilted his head for the kiss. Closed mouth, lip on lip. Dean watched the stone out of the corner of his eye. One line, purple. Another vein silently snaked out of the first, still purple. They hadn't even agreed how long they were going to do this for, but Dean still counted in his head. _...seven Mississippi, eight Mississippi, nine Mississippi…_ Sam pulled away at exactly ten Mississippis, which couldn't be a coincidence.

"That's it?" Sam said, looking at the stone. "That's lame."

"So how bad is this pond monster thing? I mean purple was good enough for a poltergeist, right?"

"Garth said it ate someone's dog."

"That poltergeist was throwing _furniture_ around," Dean pointed out.

"And an outboard motor," Sam added.

"The poltergeist threw an outboard motor?" Dean asked, wondering when he'd missed that detail.

"No, the pond monster. It ate a dog _and_ an outboard motor."

"It _ate_ an outboard motor?"

"While it was running."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So," Dean said, staring at the stone, "Tongue then?"

"Twenty Mississippis this time?" Sam suggested.

"Tongue for twenty," Dean agreed.

 _One Mississippi_. Sam's tongue was on his mouth, licking at his lips. _Two Mississippi_. Sam's tongue was poking between his lips. _Three Mississippi_. Sam's tongue was all the way in his freaking mouth. _Four Mississipi_. It was wriggling around like some spastic sea monster. _Five Mississippi_. Did the pond monster have tentacles? _Six Mississippi._ If the pond monster had tentacles, he was outta here. _Seven Mississippi_. Garth could take his pond monster and shove it; that's what Garth could do. _Eight Mississippi_. Sam shoved his tongue deeper into Dean's mouth and grunted in a very non-sexy and annoyed-sounding way. _Nine Mississippi_. Right. Right. Sammy shouldn't have to do all the work here. _Ten Mississippi_. Okay, halfway done. He could do this. They had done so many more disgusting things in the name of hunting. _Eleven Mississippi._ Dean sucked on Sam's tongue. _Twelve Mississippi_. Dean shoved his own tongue into Sam's mouth. _Thirteen Mississippi_. So much spit. This was seriously nasty. _Fourteen Mississippi_. If their parents could see them now. _Fifteen Mississippi._ Imagine what Bobby would say. _Sixteen Mississippi_. Almost done. Good. _Seventeen Mississippi_. The stone had to be bright green by now. _Eighteen Mississippi_. Or what would be after green? Yellow? _Nineteen Mississippi_. It was gonna be yellow, damn it. They were working their way through the whole gay rainbow. Of course they were. _Twenty Mississippi_. Sammy pulled back with an audible slurp.

"If that pond monster has tentacles, we aren't going near it!" Dean insisted.

"What? No. Tenta…? No. It's more of a sentient oil slick kind of thing."

"Gross."

"Yeah, the locals have tried to get the EPA involved, but the government doesn't think… Oh, my God! Seriously?! Seriously?!"

Dean followed Sam's gaze and cursed. The stone was still purple. A slightly brighter purple glowing from a few more lines than twenty painfully long seconds ago, but only purple.

"How is that even possible?"

Sam drained his wine cooler and then started typing on his computer. "I, uh, I have a theory."

"Let's hear it."

Sam said nothing and kept typing for a moment and then closed his laptop entirely.

"Dean, this is kind of embarrassing so I need you to _not_ be an asshole about it."

"Okay."

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart."

"Dean, seriously. There are certain things that are just off limits okay. You can make fun of my height. You can make fun of my hair. You can call me a girl. You can call me a nerd. But you don't get to make fun of this."

"I promise, Sam."

"So, I've been keeping track of the _charging process_ in addition to the effects of the stone."

"Of course you have."

Sam frowned and huffed pointedly.

"Sorry. Continue."

"So, I'm not sure how things have been on your end, but I'm sort of noticing a trend. The most successful charges have been, well, better kisses."

"Better kisses?"

"And I'm not critiquing your technique or anything, but that last kiss… I was not exactly into that," Sam said. Biting his lip, he added, "Were you?"

"Was I what?" Dean asked, anger building.

"Were you into that?"

"Hell, no, Sam I was not _into that_. I have not been _into_ any of this!"

Sam went all grumpy-face as Dean raised his voice.

"You know what, Sam. We have been going at this all wrong. We've known since the truck stop the best way to handle this. We need to get laid!"

Sam's jaw dropped and Dean hastily added, "Girls! Jesus, Sam. Women! If we can charge this thing just by jacking off in separate rooms, we can sure as hell charge it by having sex in separate rooms."

"We're still not sure about the range and…"

"I'll do it up against the wall if I have to, Sam. Distance is not a problem. We hit the bars. Find some friendly ladies. You let _me_ do the talking. We go back to our _separate_ rooms and we take care of business."

♥ ♥ ♥

They tried two different bars and struck out both times. Well, Dean had struck out both times. There was one gal who was definitely into Sam, but the idiot scared her off when he tried to find out if she had a friend for Dean.

"I told you to let me do all the talking!"

Sam refused to discuss it and they ended up back on Steve's pullout sofa that night, which seemed to have gotten suddenly smaller. After a poor night's sleep, they told Steve they needed to hit the road. He _said_ that he was sorry to see them go so soon, but he sounded relieved, and it was only after they repaid him their expenses that he cheerfully suggested they call next time they were in Pittsburgh. They were pretty sure the charm had worn off, but they couldn't guess when.

They put on their fed duds and Sam dug out some fake Environmental Protection Agency IDs. They hadn't used them in awhile and the photos looked ridiculously young, but they'd work. Their first stop in town was the management company for a number of properties near the "contaminated" lake.

Karen Sheeler, the woman at the office, stared at their badges for longer than Dean was really comfortable with, but it turned out that her disbelief had nothing to do with their credentials. "You realize that that complaint was filed decades ago?"

"Er..."

" _Decades_. I was in _second grade_ when that happened. You're following up _now_ because Crazy Hazel lost her _dog_ up there?"

"Look," Dean said, gesturing in surrender. "You aren't the one who filed the original complaint. We aren't the ones who originally rejected it. Obviously somebody dropped the ball on this years ago. Do you want us to look into the problem now or not?"

"Oh, God, yes," she said. "Sorry for snapping at you. It's just, my mother had a profitable business once, but it all kind of went to shit along with the lake. I grew up listening to her bitch about the EPA so it was sort of a knee jerk thing."

"You keep saying 'lake'," Sam said. "We were told 'pond'. Exactly how big is this particular body of water?"

"Crystal _Lake_! Didn't you even read the reports?!"

Dean raised his hands again. "Preaching to the choir, Ms. Sheeler. We wish we'd been fully briefed as well. If you could just get us up to speed on this, it will help everybody out."

The woman sighed, but nodded and continued. "The lake is big. Not that wide, maybe, but deep, like no one knows exactly how deep, also more than one feeder source, so no one can say for sure how the stuff got in there in the first place, but none of the feeder creeks have any signs of contamination so the theory is that something got dumped directly into the lake _or_ there's a contaminated spring underneath it."

"And the _nature_ of this contamination?" Sam asked.

"Even though I manage property up there, I've only seen it twice myself. I avoid the shoreline as much as possible, honestly. Which is a shame, some of those cabins had their own private docks, run-down now obviously. Beautiful views. They say it used to be crowded in the summer. People swimming, fishing. No one would fish in that lake now even if it had fish anymore. And Old Ned's the only person I can think of who'd dare set toe in the water, but between you and me, Old Ned has battery acid in his veins. Don't think Old Ned is capable of dying."

"When you say you've 'seen it' you mean what exactly?"

"It's like an oil slick only not. I've never seen a drop of oil wash up on shore, but you can see it out on the water sometimes."

"Only sometimes?"

"It shifts position. Maybe the wind? Crazy Hazel swears it moves faster than the water, which can't be if it's the wind that's pushing it around. But no doubt that's what she's seen. I saw weird things both times I saw it. It's got to be giving off toxic fumes of some kind. You see it and a moment later your vision goes a bit funny. It's black, but you'd swear you can see colors in it. I thought I heard a voice the last time. Gave me quite a turn. I don't like to go out there alone anymore." She shook herself and smiled awkwardly at them. "I mean in case I were to pass out or something, take ill from the fumes. I don't mean to suggest I actually heard the lake trying to lure me to my death."

Her final nervous laugh was not convincing. She 100% believed that something in that lake had tried to lure her into it.

"And there was mention of an outboard motor being..." Sam trailed off and Dean couldn't think of a good way to say "eaten by the monster" while maintaining their cover either.

"Yeah, you'll have to talk to Hazel about that," Karen said without asking them what they meant. "That was a new one on me."

She gave them directions to Crazy Hazel and Old Ned, the only two residents who hadn't abandoned their property over the years. "For the record," she added, 'Crazy Hazel is older than Old Ned and Old Ned is crazier than Crazy Hazel."

"I see you favor irony in these parts," Dean said, trying to sound jovial.

The property manager didn't pay any attention. "Seriously. A _lot_ crazier. Whatever you do, _don't_ piss him off. And if you do piss him off, you _don't_ know me and I did _not_ send you out there. Are we clear?"

"We're clear, ma'am," Sam assured her.

♥ ♥ ♥

They started with Crazy Hazel which involved a lot of meandering on back country roads to get to the far side of the lake. Karen Sheeler had called ahead and Crazy Hazel was waiting for them when they pulled up. They'd barely stepped out of the car, when she hollered at them, "Shoulda worn better shoes than that!" She made a point of stomping her hiking boots to show them what she meant by better shoes. "Gets mucky down by the water."

Crazy Hazel warmed up to them after they changed into their regular clothing and boots. Dean was the last to change and when he exited the cabin, he found the others back in the driveway where Crazy Hazel was lecturing _Sam_ about the history and glory of the American Chevrolet while Sam nodded patiently. "All these smug bastards driving around in their Fords like Ford built America. You know what F.O.R.D. stands for? Fucked-Over Rebuilt Dodge! That's what Ford stands for."

"I like her," Dean announced, earning a laugh from Hazel.

"You didn't come out here to talk cars, I know," she said. "So let's get to it. Mayhaps you'll even see it yourselves, but I wouldn't count on it. Moody bastard, our Cecil. Come on." She turned and began tromping towards the lake.

"Cecil?" Dean asked, following along.

"Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent. Bit before your time. Not even a good name as our Cecil hasn't a head or a tail."

"And no tentacles?" Dean said. "I was expressly promised no tentacles."

"Never _seen_ a tentacle on it," Hazel said in a tone of voice that did not in any way suggest she was vouching for its lack of tentacles.

Hazel lead them to an old wooden dock. It creaked under their weight and even Hazel paused at the sound. "How much you boys figure you weigh?" the old woman asked.

Dean motioned for Sam to back off. Satisfied, Hazel walked to the end of the dock and scanned the lake.

"About time to have this dock replaced, y'think?" Sam called from the shore.

"Mmm-hmm," Hazel said, still squinting at the lake. "I'll have to get in some idiots from the city. Local boys won't take the job."

There was a small boat tied to the end of the dock with an outboard motor clearly visible on the back of it.

"Would that be the motor that your Cecil supposedly ate?" Dean asked, giving up on the EPA pretense.

"The very one," Hazel said, frowning. "Bastard's lurking out there somewhere, but damned if I can spot him just now."

"You'll pardon me for saying that it looks to be in pretty good shape for having recently been eaten by a sea monster."

Hazel shrugged. "Cleaner than ever actually."

"Ma'am," Sam called from the shore. "If you wouldn't mind telling us what happened out here exactly. If you could start from the beginning, please."

She took another look at the lake, seemed to decide that the lake monster was just a no-show, and headed back to shore. "You mean last month when it got my dog? Or you want me to go all the way back to when those kids disappeared?"

"Kids?" both brothers echoed.

"They didn't tell you boys a damn thing before they sent you out here, did they?"

"Trust me, Garth and I are going to be having some words as soon as we're done here."

"So, if we're going back to the very beginning of the story that would be about '82, which still isn't quite right," she said, correcting herself as she went. "They found the kid's Camaro in the spring of '81 or '82, but the kids had gone missing the autumn before that I think. Been a hell of a long time. I might have the dates all mixed up."

Dean mentally readjusted the ages of the "kids" in question. "We're talking high schoolers?"

"No, no. College age. Went missing from one of the universities in Pittsburgh. That's why it never even made the local papers here. College kids up and drive off, y'figure drugs or girl trouble or just flunking out of school and too embarrassed to go home and face their parents. But then young Farley found the Camaro on the edge of his land. Didn't think anything of it at first. You live on a country lake, you're gonna have trespassers. Just how it is. But when it was still there a few days later, he figured he'd mention it to the authorities and they matched the registration to one of the missing boys. Officially, it didn't change their minds about what happened. Four kids, only one car found. Always a chance they just abandoned it and drove off in another car, yeah? But I ask you, can you imagine any boy leaving a perfectly good Chevy Camaro behind? No way in hell that's what happened. And the telling part, the part the authorities decided to just ignore, was the clothing."

"Clothing?"

"Yup. The kids left their clothes just lying up on the lakeside. Bit worse for wear lying out in the open all winter, but, no question, four sets of clothing. One boy's trousers were even half inside out, like he'd jumped out of 'em in a hurry. Four kids—two boys, two girls—drive to the lake, tear their clothes off, and vanish. Well, you know they went into the water. Maybe they brought bathing suits, maybe they went out in their skivvies, maybe they were skinny dipping. Never did hear whether they found any underthings or not. But four kids went into that lake and not a one of 'em came back out. And that was the winter the thing _grew_."

"Grew? You'd seen it _before_ then?"

"Caught a glimpse a couple of time. Talk was someone must have lost a boat or at least a motor, looked like an oil slick, y'see. No one came forward admitting anything, but back in those days the place was crawling with tourists in the summer. They'd come out here, get drunk, hoot and holler, do backflips off the float that used to be out there, run their boats into the docks, and never offer to pay for the damage. I'll say one good thing for Cecil, he's quieted things down more than a might. Not worth my dog though. So, anyway, whichever year it was we first saw it, the season ended early because of the pollution. We expected whatever it was would dissipate over the winter and it would be better next year, but the next summer, there it was again, as big as ever, maybe bigger. Hadn't dissipated at all, looked almost...solid isn't the right word. It's a liquid kind of thing, but it didn't mix with the water at all. Even a real oil slick breaks down with time. The funny part was, it was always the tourists that spotted it first. You'd think a person who grew up in these parts, who knows this lake like the back of their hand, you'd think one of us would notice something amiss before a buncha yahoos who don't know a flower pot from a urinal."

"You think this thing was targeting the tourists?"

Crazy Hazel shrugged and didn't answer the question. "Over time it grew. That one winter, it grew a _lot_. Farley sold his cabin the next year and a lot of other people followed suit, but after awhile there were more cabins up for sale than buyers willing to buy 'em. I think poor Karen's mother lost a lot of money on a couple of those deals. Thought she could buy up good lakefront property at a discount and make a killing reselling it to summer people who didn't know any better. But the 'mystery pollution' story hit the news and no one was going to buy a summer cabin in the next Love Canal. And that's basically the whole story."

"And the dog?"

Hazel's eyes softened. "Dumbest damn dog I ever had. Stupid shit. He was even supposed to be a purebred whatever-the-hell-he-was. My son bought him for me. Didn't think I should be living out here alone _at my age_. As if having the dumbest dog in the universe out here with me would help at all. 'Go get help, Lassie!' Ha!" She sniffled slightly. "Sweet idiot though. I'll never forget the sound of that poor thing yelping its last."

"The dog went into the lake?" Dean asked.

"Damn fool dog jumped right out of the boat."

"You still take a boat out on the lake?!" Sam asked, sounding a little freaked out. Dean wasn't sure if Sam was worried about the old lady or if he was mainly upset about the dog. Sam had a soft spot for fuzzballs.

"Don't drive anymore," she said. "And you've seen how far out we are. Even if I still had a car, I wouldn't use it when town is _right there_ ," she said pointing at the narrow lake. I motor across, tie my boat up over that side, and I keep a bicycle chained up over there to get to the grocery store and the post office."

Dean was almost as horrified at the image of the old lady riding a bicycle as motoring across the lake. No wonder her son worried about her. "What do you do in the winter time?!"

"Oh, much easier then. Once the lake freezes over, I can ski straight to town in no time."

Dean blinked and turned and looked at Sam who seemed to be just as taken aback. He was starting to understand why the locals called her Crazy Hazel.

"Uh..."

"So, anyhow," she said, with a note of finality. "Dog jumped in the lake and the slick was on it in a flash. It never went after me before, but that time, that one and only time, _I went after it_. Take my dog, will you. Hrmph. It oozed up over the outboard then. Swallowed it up completely. Just choked it right off. Just floated out there for hours, I did. It finally slunk off and once I got my nerve up, I got the motor restarted. Little afraid to even touch it for a bit," she added apologetically. "Bitched to Karen about it the next time I saw her out here. Not her fault, I know, but sometimes you just gotta bitch to somebody. I guess she must have filed another complaint about the 'pollution' in the lake. But I don't think this is really your boys' _area_ , is it?"

"Ma'am," Dean said, "this is _exactly_ our area."

Crazy Hazel squinted at them, a slight smile forming on her thin lips. "You boys aren't from the EPA, are you?"

"No, ma'am."

She nodded to herself. "You'll want to talk to Old Ned. He's just down the road, but let me warn you, Old Ned is—"

"Crazy?"

"I was going to say 'an asshole,' but I suppose 'crazier than a shithouse rat' also covers it. By the way, if he asks, I did not send you out there." And with that Hazel went back into her house and didn't see them off.

Dean could just see the water from where they stood and he thought he caught a glimpse of something through the trees. "You see that?" he asked Sam.

They walked back to the water's edge. Dean wasn't keen on going back out on the creaky dock, but it looked like something was directly under it, hidden in the shadow. It took him a moment to realize that the dock's shadow was in the wrong place. The sun should be casting a shadow the _other way_ and, indeed, even on the authentic shadow-side of the dock, the shadow was too dark, too shiny. Yet it formed a perfectly straight line in the water parallel to both sides of the dock. The thing was trying to mimic a shadow, but it was _too big_ to fit under the dock.

"Dean?" Sam sounded worried.

The thing was black, perfectly inky black. And yet... there were colors in the black, swirling sort of, pulsing even. Yet it was still black, the darkest shade of black you could imagine, but … somehow full of colors at the same time.

"Dean?"

It was like the polar opposite of the stone. The stone was a rainbow of light. This was a rainbow of dark.

"Dean!"

There was a flash of purple light and Dean found himself standing _at the end of the dock_. He glanced back and Sam was standing there with the gray stone in his hand looking absolutely panicked.

"Dean? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." Dean hurried back to dry land. "I think maybe we need to research this one a little more, eh?"

"Yeah, yeah."

The stone shook slightly in Sam's hand and Dean reached out and put his own hand over it. Realizing he'd just been hypnotized by a freaking lake monster was a little terrifying frankly. Trying to say any reassuring bullshit to Sam would be the exact opposite of reassuring so he didn't bother.

"One way or another, we gotta get this thing better than purple," Dean said, stuffing the useless empty stone in the Impala's glove box. He patted Sammy on the shoulder as he wordlessly climbed into the passenger seat. Dean glanced one last time at the lake before he got in the car and drove away.

♥ ♥ ♥

They stopped by Old Ned's, but didn't learn anything new, at least not directly. Ned was in his late sixties, so he was a young man when the "pollution" of the lake first occurred, but he claimed hazier memories on the topic than Hazel had. He referred to the time as "the good old days" but made no attempt to keep the bitter edge out of his voice when he talked about the lake's tourism heyday.

They stuck firmly to their EPA cover and didn't even mention Hazel or Karen, but Old Ned seemed standoffish and suspicious anyway. He took a good hard look at their I.D.s and then spent most of the remainder of their visit staring at their car.

"Chevy fan?" Dean suggested, trying to draw the man out.

"Nope. Don't know the first thing about 'em. Ford truck's always been good enough for me."

Dean decided not to share Hazel's opinions on Fords. "Still," Dean continued, "a Camaro's quite a classic, eh?"

Ned squinted his eyes at the car. " _That_ is an Impala."

"Is it?" Dean asked, innocently. "We rented it from a collectible car place in Pittsburgh because we thought it looked cool. I must have misheard them when they said what it was. I, uh, I thought you didn't know much about Chevys."

"Don't. Know a thing or two about an Impala though." Ned scowled at them both, and, yeah, they had _totally_ been made and if Ned knew who the Winchesters were, he certainly knew a lot more about the lake monster than he was letting on. "Never understood why anybody would name a car after a damn _deer_ ," Ned muttered.

 _Antelope,_ Dean thought to himself, but held his tongue. It was a little hard to debate the finer points of impalas while maintaining his _I-thought-it-was-a-Camaro_ façade.

They left after a few minutes of getting nowhere and headed to the library in the next town over. (The local library consisted of a few shelves of popular fiction and kid's books. They stopped just long enough to get directions to what Sam considered a "real" library with newspaper archives and local history books.) On the way, Dean also had a lengthy conversation with Garth about the quality of his intel. He wrapped up the conversation as they parked at the library. "And see what you can find on this guy...um." He tapped Sam on the shoulder. "Dude, what's Flanders' name?"

"Miller. Ned Miller." Dean repeated the name to Garth.

"You do realize there have to be a hundred Ned Millers in the country, right?" Garth asked.

"We just need the Ned Miller who recognizes a Chevy Impala on sight and prefers lake monsters over tourists."

"On it," Garth said, sounding far too cheerful for someone who'd just been chewed out for being an idiot.

Dean hung up and turned to Sam. "I don't remember anything like this in Dad's journal, do you? If he'd ever worked this case, you'd think he would have mentioned it."

Sam shrugged and said, "Maybe he never did," as he got out of the car.

Dean followed his brother across the parking lot. "How did he recognize our car then?"

"Garth keeps track of a _hunter_ network. Maybe Old Ned has contact with a _witch_ network?"

"What, you think there's some witchy Facebook page out there saying, 'Beware of a Chevy Impala' or something?"

"You think there's _not_?"

Sam didn't wait for Dean to reply as he walked into the library.

 _None_ of the newspaper archives in the county had been digitized yet, so they ended up sitting in a corner squinting at a microfiche reader which alone was enough to give Dean a headache even without the research part. It wasn't worth the effort. The newspaper records could give them names and dates, but none of the articles were any more thorough (or even hinted at nearly as much) as Crazy Hazel. There was only one microfiche reader so they took turns at straining their eyes, though honestly it was Sam who did the bulk of the work and Dean just sat and watched him.

"I don't know how you can look at all that microfilm and manage to find what you're looking for so quickly," Dean finally said when the boredom became too much for him. Research was like Sam's superpower and Dean just didn't get it.

"Microfiche."

"Microfilm. Microfish. What's the difference?"

"Micro _fiche_ , Dean. _Feesh_. Microfilm comes in strips. Microfiche comes in 4"x6" cards."

"Why _feesh_ though?"

"Fiche is French for small card."

Dean mentally processed that. "So, 'microfiche' means ' _small_ small card'."

"Yes!" Sam snapped and then muttered. "I can't believe they haven't digitized these records. Do you see how some of these are faint and blurry? Those were probably flaws in the original film development, but now the image is degrading with time on top of that. Nationwide, history is being lost due to poor records management."

"I thought you said it _wasn't_ film?"

Sam glared at him and flared his nostrils, which, if Dean were a monster, he should be rightly terrified of. That was the very last face many a monster had seen on this earth. In a fluorescent-lit library, it was kind of adorable.

"Do you ever think," Dean asked Sam, "that at some point in the future, someone's going to be sitting in a dusty old library thinking, 'Oh, my God, _none_ of these records are available on hologram. We have to look them all up on a _screen_?'"

That finally earned him the first smile from Sam since Dean had almost strolled off the end of the dock into the monster's armless embrace. Sam looked at him sideways through his hair and shushed him, but it was nearly impossible to "shush" and smirk at the same time. Dean reached out to brush the hair out of Sam's eyes and Sam whispered, "We're in _public_!" as if Dean had just done something scandalous.

Dean figured as long as he was getting in trouble for it, he might as well _be_ a little scandalous so he reached out again and this time ran his hand _through_ Sam's hair, petting all the way down to the scalp and Sam shuddered and his eyes went wide and darted around the library to see if they had any witnesses. Dean wasn't particularly worried about the microfiche corner having a lot of traffic and he figured Sam would alert him if there was anyone worth worrying about so he didn't even bother to look around himself. He just leaned in and kissed Sam, slow and sweet and a little bit open mouthed and a little bit wet, but no awkward tongue wrestling. Things had undeniably gotten a little weird between them, but this, this right here was kind of awesome and it felt so easy and natural that he couldn't understand why they didn't do this all the freaking time.

Sam pulled away and ducked his head and might have even blushed, but they were both still a bit pink from the weekend sun so who could tell. Dean traced feathery kisses down Sam's neck and Sam shuddered again and whispered, " _Itsinthecar_."

"What?"

"It's in the car," Sam whispered again. "The stone. It's in the car. We left it in the car. I don't have it."

 _Oh._ This was, what, the second time that Dean had initiated a make-out session with Sam without first verifying whether he had the stone or not. And this time, it was kind of Dean's fault, wasn't it? He'd put the stone in the glove box of the car himself when Sam had freaked out on him at the lake. He should have remembered it was there. Except it wasn't a matter of not remembering; he hadn't really been thinking about the stone at all, had he? He'd kissed Sam because he wanted to kiss Sam. And Sam had kissed back, at least at first. Did Sam forget he didn't have the stone with him because he'd been upset and not paying attention when Dean put it in the glove box? Or did Sam maybe want to kiss Dean too?

One of those possibilities meant Dean was being perverted and taking advantage of little brother's inability to say no to him. God, it was fucked up.

"I'll be in the car when you're done," Dean said and walked out of the library.

♥ ♥ ♥


	5. Chapter 5

♥ ♥ ♥ 

When Sam finally came out of the library—and he took his sweet time, probably just avoiding him—Dean had a plan. He had two plans actually, but both were thanks to the woman marching up and down the sidewalk across the street with a "GOD HATES FAGS" placard. It took Dean awhile to figure out what she was protesting, because, at first glance, she seemed to be protesting a coffee shop, which would be fine if she were protesting the prices, but that didn't seem to be her beef.

He searched the web on his phone while he waited for Sam and determined that the coffee shop was also a bookshop with the kind of books you weren't likely to find in the library. He walked over to check the place out himself and determined it to be very pro-mood-candles-and-incense as well, but he'd forgive them for that if he was about to get lucky, which some of the fliers near the counter had him optimistic about. Lots of groups offering meditation and yoga and spiritual cleansing, but also a few offering thinly disguised opportunities for group sex and a few things that Dean wasn't sure he wanted to know about. (They might have involved exercise of the clothed variety. It was unclear.) He talked to the owner, bought an overpriced bottle of massage oil to keep her talking and flirting, and then jumped right in with the hopes that he at least wouldn't get slapped for being honest about sex in a place like this. She took his number and she said she had a friend who might be willing to help out and promised to call either way later that night.

That was the first plan. The other plan meant that when Sam exited the library, he found Dean, not in the car, but waving to him from across the street under a "GOD HATES FAGS" sign. Sam didn't look happy about this as he crossed the street to join him.

The protester, who had seen Dean enter and exit the shop and had clearly noticed the bag indicating he had made a purchase while inside, was lecturing Dean at length about how he was going to go to hell. Dean found her fire and brimstone imagery oddly soothing compared to his actual memories of hell so she was failing miserably if her goal was to frighten him.

One of her odder points seemed to be that lesbians were destroying America with abortion. "I don't claim to have access to all the numbers," Dean said, "but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that lesbians might be having fewer abortions than the average."

"Hey," Sam said to Dean as he walked up, giving the woman with the sign the side eye. "What's up?"

"Good news all around," Dean said brightly. "It turns out this lovely establishment—"

"Of sin!" the woman added.

"—in addition to selling coffee, also sells books—"

"And damnation!"

"—and also sex toys," Dean added with a nod, rather enjoying the way the woman sputtered. " _And_ for those who would like to go to hell _with a friend_ , they host several social clubs featuring many alternate lifestyles."

"Of sin!"

"You already said that one," Sam pointed out. "Dean, what has this—?

"Just trust me. You'll want to go in and talk to them. 'Alternate lifestyles' includes occult religious practices. They know stuff. Also, play your cards right and we're getting laid tonight. The pretty lady at the counter has a friend."

"Whoring and wickedness!"

"Oh, so much whoring and wickedness if we're lucky," Dean agreed. "Which actually brings me back to my original reason for coming over here. So we're pretty sure Miller is human, right? I'm thinking witch."

"Agreed."

"So far we only have a human sample of two. A cop who, for all we know, would have been too lazy to deal with the paperwork of following up on our registration inconsistencies and Steve who, for all we know, was in the market for new best friends anyway. Even that vampire had nothing personal against us and, as far as turning on his nest, vampires aren't known for their loyalty beyond mates and sires. He could have been looking for an excuse to break out of there. No, we need to test this out on someone that we know _hates_ us. Ideally who is also harmless so we don't have to worry about another fight."

He normally wouldn't have this kind of conversation in front of a civilian, but the woman had started chanting from Leviticus the moment he mentioned a witch, so it really didn't matter.

Sam was rubbing his forehead by the time Dean finished. "Okay, sure. Do you have it this time?"

Dean patted his shirt pocket.

Sam nodded and, despite his earlier protests about being in public, stepped into Dean's personal space bubble without hesitation and pulled Dean into an embrace. Sam slipped both arms around Dean's torso, leaving Dean's arms free and in prime hair-petting position. They licked briefly at each others lips before settling into a more traditional kiss. It was almost as good as in the library, just that tiny bit more self-conscious which was sort of inevitable given that they had an audience who was now actively screeching at them in horror.

Dean pulled back and Sam was smiling and so hopefully not feeling too molested. Dean pulled the stone out of his pocket and it was a satisfying shade of purple, what they used to think of as a full charge back when they still thought purple was the only color.

"Suavium et complexus," he said.

"I just want what's best for you!" she sobbed. "Why can't you see that? You don't want to go to hell do you?"

"Lady, I can't even begin to tell you how much neither one of us wants to go back to hell."

That seemed to confuse her enough that she didn't have an immediate response.

"Will you wait here for a moment, ma'am? We'll be right back out."

As they slipped past her, she said something to Sam about him being too thin and needing to eat more.

Inside the shop, Dean tugged Sam toward the woman behind the coffee counter and, with a proprietary pat on Sam's shoulder, proudly said, "What did I tell you? Did I even exaggerate?"

The woman looked Sam up and down and back up again and said a little breathlessly, "Oh, she's _totally_ going to be up for this. She doesn't get off work until eight though. Is nine o'clock too late?"

"Perfect."

"Uh, hi," Sam said, somewhat out of sync with the conversation.

"So, anyway, tell him what you told me about Old Ned."

She shrugged, "What, that he's an evil old bastard?"

"Yeah."

"He's an evil old bastard," she repeated. "That kind of sums him up."

"The Wiccan clubs," Dean prompted.

She rolled her eyes. "Please, please, _don't_ call Ned a Wiccan. Wicca is about the harmony of nature, _not_ controlling nature. There's nothing occult about it. It's those kind of misunderstandings that get us harassed by people like that." She pointed towards where the lady with the sign was still standing outside the front window.

"Actually," Dean said, waving at a shelf of dildos at the back of the shop, "I think she's a little more upset about those."

She glanced at the shelf and asked, "Oh, should I bring anything tonight? I have a pretty impressive private collection."

"Hi, I'm Sam!" Sam held out his hand and they shook hands awkwardly. If Sam managed to mess up their sure thing, he was going to have to kill him. At least the lake monster would make for easy body disposal.

But she just laughed. "Sorry about that. I meant to introduce myself and then got... distracted. I'm Tina. My friend you'll be meeting later is Annabella. She prefers 'Annabella' by the way. Please don't shorten it. Especially _don't_ call her 'Bella' okay?"

"Annabella," Sam repeated. "Got it."

Tina tilted her head and gave Sam yet another once over before saying to Dean, "Actually, I think _you_ need to practice saying 'Annabella'."

'Yeah, fine, Annabella, got it. Whatever."

"So did you have any specific _requests_ for tonight?"

She asked Sam, but Dean cut in to answer. "You'll want to go a little easy on Sam. He's skittish."

"I'm not skittish," Sam insisted.

"He's a little repressed," Dean said.

"I'm not repressed. _You're_ repressed. You turn everything into a sex joke _because_ you're a prude and you have to make fun of things that make you nervous."

"Dude, I'm just letting her know that she doesn't need to bring the big power tools because you're not into that."

"You don't know what I'm _into_." And, great, Sam was using his pissy voice now.

"All I'm saying is that you might not be ready for everything in her _repertoire_ ," Dean said, once again gesturing to the shelf where the sex toys were on display right out in the open next to the incense and hand-made ceramic mugs.

"Dude, you don't have to tip toe around this with code words as if I'm an innocent virgin. I've _had_ anal sex before!"

"With who?!" _Please don't say Lucifer! Please don't say Lucifer!_ There were things Dean was afraid of that he never actually wanted to know. " _Good_ anal sex?!" he quickly clarified.

But Sammy was just facepalming and wouldn't answer the question and Tina was looking a little uncomfortable with all the arguing.

She cleared her throat and intervened. "No one will be doing anything that anyone is uncomfortable with, but there should also be no shaming involved about anything anyone says they _would_ like to try. And if there's anything you want to avoid due to past trauma—"

"Yes, _good_ anal sex, Dean," Sam answered belatedly. "And, yes, before you ask, with another guy a couple of times. Mostly women and toys though. Honestly, mostly toys. Although, maybe not with someone I just met," he added somewhat apologetically to Tina. "It's kind of a trust thing."

"Understood," she agreed.

"You have sex toys? Like, you _own_ your own dildo?" Trying something out with a partner was one thing. Sometimes girls liked it when you did weird things as part of the warm up, but Sam was implying he _liked_ doing that.

"A couple of them even vibrate," Sam said defiantly.

"What, you just travel around with a case of—"

"No, I don't travel with all of them. I didn't even buy the vibrators until we moved into the... to Kansas where I had more privacy. I'm not even planning to keep them all, but I wanted to try a few different things out."

Dean was still staring at Sam and trying to wrap his brain around the idea of Sam and sex toys.

"What?" Sam asked. "You've _never_ played around with anal?"

"Ever?" Tina asked.

"Look, we have stuff to do, so we need to get going. See you at nine then."

He hastily dragged Sam out of the shop. "I can't believe you started talking about butt stuff in front of her!"

"Jesus will forgive you," the woman with the sign said.

"That actually contradicts your sign," Sam pointed out.

The woman looked at her sign and seemed confused. "Well, I suppose you could interpret it that way. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

Sam took a deep breath. "Hi. I'm Sam. This is Dean."

"I'm Carol."

"Nice to meet you, Carol. So, Carol, I have to say, that your sign did, in fact, hurt my feelings. I imagine it hurts a lot of people's feelings. The whole God-hates-you thing is a tiny bit repugnant actually."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Have you eaten? Can I buy you lunch? I know it's late, but you look thin and regular meals are very important."

Carol agreed to throw away her sign and they agreed to let her buy them lunch at an upscale restaurant and Dean didn't even feel bad for ordering the priciest thing on the menu. Even Sam, who normally stuck to plants, ordered the surf-n-turf and even talked Carol into splurging on a shrimp cocktail for herself and, knowing Sam, Dean had a feeling where this was going to end up. The stone hadn't made Carol any less annoying or ignorant, but it had at least taken the venom out of her and even _she_ seemed confused about some of her points as she tried to make them. Sam was determined to use this window of opportunity to get through to her.

"So you think we're bad people?" Sam asked.

"No, no, of course not. You're obviously very nice boys."

"So you think God hates good people?"

"No!"

"But you think God punishes good people?"

"No?"

Whenever Carol got confused she fell back on quoting Leviticus, which was conveniently when the shrimp cocktail arrived and Dean excused himself to use the restroom because he knew this was just going to be cringe-worthy and this was a perfect time to step away from the table. He was hoping it would all be over by the time he got back, but when he returned to the table, Carol was staring doubtfully at her untouched shrimp cocktail while Sam insisted that Jesus _would totally_ eat shrimp cocktail.

"Backfired, did it?" Dean asked sitting back down.

"I'm getting a headache," Sam said. "I think I accidentally talked her into keeping kosher."

"So, if you're not gonna eat that, can I have it?" Dean asked.

Carol slid the dish across to him. Sam and Carol continued to debate the context of various biblical verses when Dean decided to push things. "So, did Sam tell you that we're actually brothers?"

"Oh?" Carol paused briefly before continuing to eat her salad.

"Yup. Same parents, raised together and everything."

"That's... unusual."

"Mmm-hmm." Dean leaned over and kissed Sam, a single peck just at the side of his mouth, but it clearly flustered him. Dean struggled to resist the urge to check the stone. It should barely even count as a kiss, but he was curious whether the stone thought it counted or not.

"The bible doesn't _expressly_ forbid fraternal incest," she conceded, "but it does prohibit relations between a man and his sister, so _brother_ would sort of be implied as well. Of course, Abraham married his half-sister, but I think that there were special circumstances involved. When you're traveling the wilderness with only family, options _are_ limited aren't they?"

Dean glanced up and met Sam's eyes. He'd really just been trying to rile Carol up to see what kind of effect the stone was having on her. He hadn't expected her to hand them a nice little rationalization for their recent activities.

"So, Dean, you said you found something out about Old Ned and some Wiccan groups," Sam said, abruptly switching topics while he aggressively carved his steak.

"Yeah, so it turns out that back in the mid-1970s, Not-Yet-So-Old Ned founded a series of Wiccan groups throughout the tri-county area. And by 'series', I mean that he'd start up a group and then storm off or get kicked out for creative differences and move on to start a different group. He was a little too radical for all of them. And keep in mind, we're talking 1970s hippies. Do you realize how radical you had to be to freak out 1970s hippies? It would start out as your standard tree-hugging and nature worship, but Ned was apparently obsessed with tapping into primal energy, veering into dark occult stuff."

"Ned Miller consorts with demons!" Carol hissed.

It wasn't that far out of line from all the other nonsense she'd been saying, so Dean wasn't sure he should take her seriously, but it also wasn't too far out of line from their own working theory.

"You ever see any of these demons?" Dean asked.

"Just the one," she admitted. "He controls it with a collar around its neck. No leash. Just a collar. I think the leash might be _invisible_."

"You think he might actually have a person chained up out there?" Sam asked Dean.

"No! It's a demon!" Carol insisted. "Sometimes it drives Ned's old truck out to my vegetable stand. Ned has it running errands on its own. But it's always got that collar on."

"What does this collar look like exactly?" Sam asked.

"Bit like a woman's choker, but it's got wicked occult symbols etched into it for decoration. People think it's just a necklace, but I tell you, I've _seen_ Old Ned control the thing with that collar. Ned says jump and if that thing don't ask 'How high?' fast enough, Old Ned _whispers_ at it and its eyes go all black for just a second and then _it does what it's been told_."

"A witch, a demon, _and_ a lake monster," Dean summarized. "Fun."

"The witch has found a way to bind a demon. The demon could have taught him a way to control the lake monster. It's a good theory. And if Old Ned has an actual demon trapped against its will, the demon could be the weak link. He's not likely to have Ned's back if he's got a chance of escape."

"Could still get pretty messy though. Good thing we're gonna power up tonight." Dean smiled at the thought, but Sam only shrugged.

Halfway through dessert Carol demanded the check and then hastily excused herself, vowing to pray for them, and looking more confused than ever. Dean checked his watch. About an hour and a half. "That was quick."

"Backs up your theory. If we're dealing with someone actively hostile to us, we can't expect the effect of the stone to last long."

With Carol gone, Dean finally reached into his pocket to check the stone. Another solid purple charge. "Look at that. One little kiss for that one. I think we're getting better at this."

Sam just went back to eating his ice cream.

♥ ♥ ♥

They got two adjacent motel rooms and rearranged the furniture in one of them so that the beds were up against the shared wall.

"How do we time this?" Sam asked.

"Walls are pretty thin. Shouldn't be a problem."

"You have it?" Sam asked, patting his pockets nervously even though Dean still had the stone.

Dean put the stone in the drawer of the bedside table.

"Okay, I guess we're all set then," Sam said.

"You have a condom?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Or were you asking for one? Did you need—?"

"No, no. I got it covered. I just wanted to make sure you were, uh, supplied."

Sam let out an audible "Thank God" when Tina and Annabella knocked on the door.

Annabella turned out to be all legs which Dean could absolutely work with and she didn't seem to have any objections to him either. Tina was ready and raring to get started right then and there and both ladies seemed disappointed when Dean made it clear that he was _not_ on board for a foursome. However, Tina was politely firm that everyone was staying safely in their comfort zones and she was happy to go to a separate room with Sam when it came time for that.

However, she and Annabella seem to have some sort of code worked out between them to indicate when Annabella felt safe enough to be left alone with Dean and two minutes after being introduced wasn't quite it. So for the time being it was all four of them sitting on Dean's bed and drinking diet colas that the women had brought and making small talk and gradually working their way up to more physical contact. They listened to music on Dean's phone. Sam and Dean compromised on a playlist of classic rock covers re-done as cello instrumentals, which worked better than Dean liked to admit. For awhile it felt like a junior high social and Dean half-expected a game of spin-the-bottle to break out.

Sam was sitting straight-backed and awkward at the foot of the bed and Tina offered him a shoulder and neck massage to loosen up, which was an absolutely brilliant idea because it turned out that neck massage was a pretty decent spectator sport.

"I, uh, have that massage oil, if you want," Dean offered.

Sam looked nervously over his shoulder, but when Tina asked if he was comfortable taking his shirt off for a full back rub, he didn't hesitate. She arranged him face down on the bed next to where Dean and Annabella were snuggled up. He still had his jeans on. Hell, he still had his shoes on, big feet dangling off the end of the bed, but since he and Tina would be relocating to the next room shortly it made sense for him not to strip off yet.

Soon enough, Sam was taking deep breaths that could either indicate satisfaction or maybe a little frustration, but either way Dean was pretty sure Sam's jeans had to be getting a little tight by then. Dean's certainly were and he was still fully clothed. Annabella was getting pretty into the show as well and squirmed a little at his side until she finally asked if Dean would give her a back rub too. He graciously agreed, kicked off his shoes, and peeled off his outer shirt.

Annabella slipped her shirt off over her head and then in a flash had her bra off, tossing it to the side. Apparently she'd warmed up to him by now. She lined herself up on the bed right next to Sam and, judging by the look on his face, the kid had an amazing view of her jiggling breasts as she crawled on all fours into position. Sam was twisting out of his back rub just to get a better view.

Tina shared the massage oil and she and Dean got a nice rhythm going. They each straddled their partner as Sam and Annabella moaned and panted beneath them, Annabella being the far more vocal of the two. After a few minutes, Annabella squirmed onto her back exposing her breasts with their hard nipples to everyone in the room. Sam audibly smacked his lips. Annabella moaned and, looking at Sam to her side, cupped her breasts, squeezing them together but leaving the nipples in full view. Dean was never sure if chicks actually liked that feeling or if they just liked showing off.

It was a pretty clear invitation, but Dean always liked to ask to be sure. In his sultriest voice he asked, "Would you like me to lick those nipples?"

"Mmm-hmmm! Yes! God!"

"Maybe suck on them a little too?" he teased, still not moving any closer.

"Yes! Yes! Now!"

Dean winked at Sam who looked completely shell shocked and then lowered himself down to mouth at Annabella's breasts. That put him pretty close to Sam's face so Sam got a front row view. They maintained eye contact as Dean swirled his tongue around one of Annabella's areolas. _I could do this for you, Sammy,_ he thought. _Do you want this?_

Sam whimpered as if he could read Dean's mind.

Tina leaned down and kissed the side of Sam's face, momentarily blocking him from Dean's view, which Dean found instantly frustrating. "Ready for our own room, big guy?" she asked.

Sam grunted in the affirmative and flared his nostrils and Dean changed his mind. Dean was totally on board with a foursome. But Sam was on his feet before Dean could get any words out and he and Tina were racing for the door. Sam grabbed his shirt as Annabella was losing her pants and it was all happening so fast and, as the door opened, Dean quickly blurted, "It's okay, you can stay! I'm okay with it!"

But Sam looked him dead in the eye and said, "I'm not," and then slammed the door behind them.

"Oh."

Annabella was naked and ready, but Dean fumbled getting his clothes off, still hearing Sam's voice in his head. Was that an angry door slam or a hurried door slam? The expression on Sam's face had been no help. Sam's homicidal face and Sam's horny face were eerily similar. He was probably just eager to get Tina alone and naked. He probably wasn't mad at Dean at all. Probably.

"You okay?" Annabella asked, helping Dean tug off his jeans.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. All good. Great." Time to focus. Hot naked lady with long muscular legs. This was no time to let his mind wander. "Let me just, uh, condom." He shucked his underpants and used them to wipe the pre-ejaculate off the head of his dick before rolling the condom on.

"Oh, you are good and ready, aren't you?" she said, licking her way up his chest.

And in the next room he heard a woman squeal and then laugh and then a loud deep grunt from Sam.

"Not wasting any time next door either," Annabella laughed.

Dean wanted to slow down a little. This pace wasn't his style. He liked to spend a little more time teasing up to the big event. But Sam and Tina were already grunting to a distinct rhythm like they were racing to the finish line.

"Are you ready? Do you want this now?" He cupped his balls as he asked, some stupid defensive instinct kicking in. He probably looked ridiculous.

"More than ready," she purred in his ear, pulling him down next to her.

They turned to face each other on their sides. He slipped one arm underneath her and held his dick steady with the other hand, letting Annabella work herself onto it, one long leg slung over his side. He had to adjust position, not wanting to crush her bottom leg. 

"Not to be boring, but how do you feel about missionary?"

Annabella apparently felt just fine about missionary. You could come up with a thousand metaphors, but nothing was quite like that moment when you feel your dick _inside_ another human being. He was about two thirds in when he met resistance at the end of the line, so maybe Annabella wasn't quite that ready after all. She felt slick enough though.

"Uh, is that okay?" he asked, not quite sure how to phrase the question.

"Sorry, I'm a little shallow, at least until I warm up. If you can just avoid hitting my cervix in the meantime, I should be able to stretch out and take it all."

Judging by the sounds next door, Sam and Tina were going at it like animals and Dean had the feeling he and Annabella didn't have a chance of catching up. "But I can keep going?" he asked.

"Yeah, just easy, okay?"

"Maybe switch to cowgirl?" 

They swapped positions and Dean reached down with one hand and gripped the base of his dick, measuring out as much as he could comfortably fit inside her and giving himself a buffer so he didn't over thrust.

"Does that feel good?" he asked.

"Oh, God, perfect!"

 _And people say porn isn't practical,_ Dean thought triumphantly. For once, watching video of guys with ridiculously oversized genitalia had come in handy.

Either someone just killed a bear next door or Sammy came. At any rate, _something_ literally growled and then the grunts ended abruptly. "Jesus, man, pace yourself," Dean muttered under his breath. He slowed his rhythm and tried to focus on Annabella, which was easier now without the weird moose sounds throwing him off and distracting him.

She wriggled and made encouraging moans which escalated to vague dirty talk. "Yeah, like that, baby! Fuck me just like that!" It sounded a little scripted, like she was playing porn videos in her head too, but whatever worked. And it was definitely working. "All the way in, baby. I can take it." And this time she did, as she slid down on him just that little bit more. Now that he could thrust away without having to think about it, it freed up both hands for better things. Dean prided himself in making sure his women got off and Annabella was not going to be an exception. Pretty soon they were both probably making their own stupid noises, but no one could say that Dean Winchester didn't get the job done.

She came first and, surfing a wave of pride, Dean followed. Okay, so it hadn't been the greatest sex, but it was better than jerking off and maybe it would take the edge off of his weird fantasies about his brother.

They took turns pissing and showering (the shower was really too small for anything like a romantic post-coital shower for two) and as Dean toweled off, he realized that he didn't know how this evening was meant to end. Should he get dressed now? Or were the women planning to spend the night? He really wanted to touch base with Sam, make sure Sam wasn't still upset about his spontaneous foursome offer. Why did he have to go and say that out loud? He also was dying of curiosity about the stone. Had they gotten it up to yellow this time? Or maybe orange? But he couldn't exactly do any of that now.

Annabella walked out of the bathroom still naked, toweling off her hair, but making no attempt to hide her body. She slung her arms around his neck and pressed her entire body against him as she kissed him lazily. "That was awesome."

Then she flopped back onto the bed and it definitely looked like she was planning to stay awhile.

"So, are you two sticking around for breakfast?" Dean asked, trying to make it sound like he was encouraging this, while secretly hoping she'd say no.

She stretched sleepily and said, "Depends on Tina. I don't have to be at work until noon, but Tina opens the shop early so she might want to get home tonight and I'm driving her."

Nearly on cue, Tina shouted, "Atta boy!" and the grunting next door resumed.

Annabella yawned and pulled the covers over herself. "Sounds like we're staying for breakfast."

"Well, what he lacks in finesse, I guess he makes up for in stamina. I'll give him that."

Dean put on a clean T-shirt and underpants and offered Annabella a spare shirt. He shut off the music, turned out the light, climbed into bed… and stared sleeplessly at the ceiling, listening to Sam fuck. He lasted longer the second time and, for Dean, it was forever.

♥ ♥ ♥

Tina tiptoed in at dawn and woke Annabella up. Neither of the women seemed to be morning people and they didn't actually stay for breakfast. Tina gathered up their things and Annabella staggered after her muttering about getting coffee on the way.

Sam hovered in the background and exchanged a polite kiss with Tina as she left, but Dean didn't get the vibe that Sam and Tina would be doing this again even if they did stay in town.

As soon as the women left, Sam's eyes darted around the room looking for the stone. "How'd we do? Enough power, y'think?"

Dean pointed at the bedside table and flopped back down on his pillow. He was curious as well, but from the moment Annabella mentioned coffee, all he could think about was all the caffeine that he did not have.

"Dean, what did you do?!"

"Hrm?"

"I swear to God, Dean, if I went to all that work and you wasted it on another fucking cockroach...!"

"What?" Dean looked over and Sam pulled the stone out of the bedside drawer. It had maybe one or two veins, glowing faint purple, a noticeable _decrease_ in power level since the night before. "The hell, man?"

"Dean..."

"I didn't use it! I haven't touched it! What the hell were you and Tina doing over there? Annabella and I did _our_ part!"

Sam dropped down to the side of the bed, shoulders slumped in defeat. "We had sex!"

"I know," Dean admitted, not sure why he'd accused Sam of failing to follow through.

"Twice!"

"I know," Dean said and, when Sam turned and frowned at him, he added, "You're not exactly quiet."

"I'm not saying it was _great_ sex," Sam continued, turning the stone over in his hand as if it might be hiding a charge if he just looked closer. "But it should have added _something_. It shouldn't have _drained_ it. We've had bad kisses before, Dean. It's never drained the stone. Bad sex shouldn't drain it."

"Okay, that progressed very quickly from 'not great sex' to 'bad sex'," Dean said. "Did she do something to you? Wait, she didn't bring any of her 'toys' and make you do butt stuff, did she?"

"My God, Dean, will you stop obsessing about butt stuff." Sam got up and stalked across the room to his bag which he then dumped out on Dean's bed and started pawing through the mess until he found what he was looking for. "There. The travel dildo. I'm not saying I use it often, but I have it for when the urge strikes. Go on. Make your 'Samantha' jokes."

Dean froze. Sam had just tossed his freaking dildo right onto Dean's chest and Dean was going to have to touch it or leave it there. "Dude!"

Dean picked it up. It was cold to the touch. It looked like it had been carved out of some kind of marble or something. It looked old like an artifact and Dean was pretty sure he'd seen it before—hell, _touched_ it before, digging around for things in Sam's stuff—and he'd just dismissed it as some relic that Sam had for some reason. "Dude, is this an antique dildo? Because that can't be hygienic."

"No, it's not antique. I was just going for subtle in case you found it in my bag."

 _Ew._ That was Sam _admitting_ that he knew Dean had probably touched the thing before.

Dean tossed it back toward Sam's bag, scrambled out of bed, and quickly started pulling on his clothes.

"And it's easier to clean than plastic actually," Sam added, still sounding huffy.

"It's, uh, compact," which was Dean's way of saying that it was actually smaller than his dick. Didn't people go for fantasy sizes when they bought these things?

"It doesn't have to be very long to get the job done," Sam said.

"Oh." Dean had no idea what else to say to that.

"And it was in my bag the whole time and, no, she didn't bring any toys of her own because I'd asked her not to and _she_ respected that. _She_ didn't force me to do anything."

Boom. There it was. Dean had been so careful to not molest Sam himself and had just ended up molesting him by proxy. "Oh, God, Sam, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—I thought you'd at least have fun, man. And you didn't have to—damn it, Sam, you're allowed to say no to me when I tell you to do stupid shit!"

"Since when do you ever take no for an answer?!"

"Sammy, I am so sorry. I thought you understood that, that... like you said before, there are certain things that are off-limits for joking around and those same things are off-limits for me bossing you around and... I'm sorry."

Sam deflated a little in the face of Dean's apologies. "I didn't mean it like that. Christ, I'm not saying you forced her on me. I agreed. There was clear consent, okay? I thought it would be fun too. It's just, the actual process was just kind of frustrating."

And Sam grunted to underscore his point and Dean suddenly understood. That hadn't been a hot-n-heavy grunt, that was a sexually-frustrated grunt. Sam didn't get loud during sex when he was enjoying it; he got loud during sex when he was having trouble getting there.

There was a knock at the door.

They both looked nervously to the door and then back at each other.

"They forgot something?" Sam whispered.

 _Oh, please don't let them have overheard any of that,_ Dean silently pleaded. Maybe it was just the neighbors complaining about the yelling? Still embarrassing, but nowhere near as bad as the idea of Tina overhearing how "not great" the sex had been for Sam.

He opened the door to a worse option than he had ever even considered.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel said.

♥ ♥ ♥


	6. Chapter 6

♥ ♥ ♥ 

Castiel was just _standing there_ like it was a perfectly normal day and the universe still made sense. He strained his neck to look over Dean's shoulder and added, "Hello, Sam."

"Hi, Cas," Sam said.

"What are you doing here?" Dean asked.

"Rude much?" Sam asked. "Come on in, Cas."

Dean didn't move out of the way though and Castiel's forehead crinkled as if he weren't quite sure what to do about this obstacle.

"I was contacted by your associate, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had questions about an entity resembling one of the Old Ones. I believe he feared it had some connection to the Leviathan."

And, okay, that wasn't a conversation they should have in the motel doorway where any old random passerby might overhear. "Come in, come in." He ushered Castiel in and shut the door quickly behind him. "You think this thing is a Leviathan? In, like, original gooey form?"

"It seems unlikely given what Mr. Fitzgerald said about the creature first being spotted several decades ago."

"Garth. Just call him Garth. 'Mr. Fitzgerald' is giving me a headache."

Castiel squinted at him as if he could peer into his skull. Could he? Was a headache something he expected to physically see? For a guy who'd been around for thousands of years, it seemed like Castiel's default expression should not be confusion, but it was.

Cas finally looked down and continued, "If the pond monster that _Garth_ described first became active while the Leviathan were still trapped in Purgatory, I don't believe it could be an actual Leviathan."

" _Lake_ monster," Dean said. "That's not a pond. It's a big freaking lake. No one even knows how deep it is."

Castiel accepted this information with only a nod, staring somewhat vacantly at nothing in particular. "It _is_ possible that the creature is one of the primordial monsters akin to the Leviathan which somehow escaped the original creation of Purgatory. That leaves open the question of why it would only become active so recently."

"A few decades ago," Dean corrected.

"In the greater scheme of time, a few decades is a blink of an eye. You've found no legends involving this lake prior to that?"

"No," Sam said, "but we've heard a rumor that the local witch has been keeping a demon captive. He could have used the demon to tap into some dark magic, conjure this thing out of who knows where."

Again, Castiel just nodded as if this information were of no particular interest to him. "I was intrigued because Garth mentioned that you had acquired an unusual artifact recently."

That's when Dean realized that Castiel was looking at the stone, glowing faintly on the bed where Sam had left it, right next to the freaking dildo. Castiel reached down and, for a horrible moment, Dean thought he was going to grab the dildo, but he ignored it and picked up the stone.

"It works?" Castiel asked.

"Yeah, with varying results, but yeah. You've heard of it?" Sam asked.

"They are known by many names. Passion Stone, Cupid's Heart, Pharaoh’s Heart, Angel Heart—although I assure you that angels have nothing to do with it—Lovers Stone is probably the most commonly used name."

"The guy we got it from called it the The Heart Stone," Dean said, knowing he wasn't really adding much to the conversation.

"Do you have any idea where he acquired this?" Castiel asked. "They're very rare."

"No, we shot him," Dean said.

Castiel scowled at him disapprovingly.

"What? He was trying to hex us!"

"So there's more than one?" Sam asked.

"Originally, yes. The exact number is as uncertain as the stone's origin. Some say there were three, some seven, some as many as nine. Most versions of the story say only two, but that's obviously not the case."

"Obvious because?" Dean prompted.

"Because two of the stones have already been destroyed. One was deliberately tossed into a volcano in an attempt to calm the mountain's restless spirit. However, as this was a simple geological event, it was not susceptible to the stone's influence and the feared eruption occurred a short while later regardless. The second stone was destroyed under somewhat more disturbing circumstances."

Dean shifted position, blocking Castiel's view of the dildo. He really hoped Castiel was as oblivious as he sometimes seemed. Castiel only stared back into his eyes. The angel _still_ had zero concept of personal space or the fact that you just don't stare into someone's _eyes_ like that. It's weird. Dean held his ground and defiantly stared back. It was only when he was face to face with Castiel up close like this that Dean thought about the fact that very few people have blue eyes. A lot of people _say_ they have blue eyes, but most of them just have sort of bluish gray eyes. Jimmy Novak had had _blue_ eyes and sometimes Castiel just didn't look real as a result.

Sam cleared his throat. "So what happened to the second stone?"

"It was in the possession of a local ruler. The man had a number of wives or possibly mistresses, the distinction is sometimes vague, but could only use the stone with a select few of them—"

"Wait," Dean interrupted. "The version we heard was that this thing can only be activated by True Love's Kiss."

"Well, 'kiss' is something of a metaphor. As I understand it, physical affection of any kind between lovers will activate the stone."

"But _true_ love," Dean repeated.

"Yes."

"So how could this guy use the stone with a bunch of different hotties?"

"I said 'a select few' of his mistresses. I do not believe that 'a select few' constitutes 'a bunch' of 'hotties'."

"But still. We had sex last night and it didn't do crap. It actually _lost_ power."

Castiel frowned at the stone in his hand. "You and Sam had sexual relations with each other? That doesn't make sense. That degree of physical intimacy between you should have fully powered the stone."

"Not with each other!" Dean shouted. "With women! In separate rooms!"

"Oh, that wouldn't work at all," Castiel said. "I can see how that would decrease the stone's effectiveness."

"But the stone was right there," Dean said, waving at the bedside table. "And it's worked before with us in different rooms as long as the stone was close by."

Castiel frowned and looked more confused than ever. "You have been able to activate the stone by having sexual relations with someone other than Sam?"

"No!"

"We were masturbating," Sam explained. "So, just the two of us, but not actually together."

"Ah, I see. Were you thinking about each other while you were masturbating?"

"Dude!" Dean could not believe the things that came out of Castiel's mouth sometimes. You never, ever ask a dude what he was fantasizing about while jerking it. _Ever!_

What followed was the most awkward of awkward silences in the history of the whole awkward universe. Castiel was looking back and forth between the brothers as if he still expected one of them to answer his question about incestuous gay masturbatory fantasies. Dean was shocked speechless and Sam... Sam just looked sad which was kind of weird.

"Yeah," Sam finally said quietly, looking down at his toes, " _I_ was, anyway."

Dean's stomach dropped through the center of the Earth, but Castiel just went on as if this was a perfectly acceptable thing to be talking about out loud. "I don't think the stone would be affected by walls or even necessarily who is touching whom. I think the key point would be that you were both thinking of the other while pleasuring yourselves in close proximity to the stone."

 _Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!_ Dean did _not_ say anything about thinking about Sam. Castiel was jumping to conclusions about what he, okay, _totally did_ , but still.

Sam glanced up and his expression went from _sad puppy_ to _gloating_ in a fraction of a second. _Bitch._

"You were telling a story about some ancient king and his concubines," Dean said, poking Castiel in the chest. "Get on with it."

"The stone requires physical affection between lovers who also share a strong spiritual affection. However, it does not require that this affection be exclusive. Thus the ruler in question could utilize the stone with the assistance of more than one woman. He would use the stone often for trade negotiations and so forth. However, on one such occasion, the stone would not activate. History does not record _why_ the woman fell out of love with him, but his following actions suggest that she had good reasons. The ruler flew into a jealous rage. He accused her of infidelity—a somewhat hypocritical accusation given his relations with other women—and had her executed."

"That's fucked up," Dean said.

"As is much of human history," Castiel added, handing the stone to Dean. "Well, now that I've confirmed that this is a Lovers Stone, I have no doubt you will succeed. You're quite lucky. This is one of the few magical artifacts of pure positive energy. Unless I can be of any further assistance, I'll leave you two alone now."

"Wait," Sam said. "You didn't finish your story. How was the stone destroyed?"

"Ah, I thought it was obvious. The ruler murdered a woman he had once loved. The stone requires a deep and _mutual_ love to work. Mere sexual activity is not enough. To betray a loved one in such a heinous way as murder... It was that very act that destroyed the stone. They say it melted into a lump of volcanic glass, beautiful but inert ever after."

"Can you charge the stone?" Dean asked as Castiel reached for the doorknob.

Castiel stared into him with those too-blue-to-be-true eyes and said, "I'm sure I can."

"Great. Zap it."

"Zap it?"

Dean held the stone out. "Just, y'know, zap it with your angel mojo. We've got a witch, a demon, and a primordial lake whatsit to deal with, we need as big a charge as we can get."

"It will only work on one target at a time."

"Yeah, yeah, we figured that out already, but it's better than nothing. So, go on, charge it up."

"Dean, I cannot just 'zap it' with my 'angel mojo'. The stone doesn't work like that."

"You said you could charge it."

"Yes. The same way that you and Sam can. It requires a minimum of two people," Castiel explained. He glanced over at Sam, licked his lips somewhat nervously, and added, "But I don't think this is the time for that. Goodbye, Dean."

After the door closed behind him, Sam asked, "Was it just me or did he seem a little jealous?"

"Oh, shut up."

"No, seriously. And did you notice that when he thought we'd had sex with each other, he didn't think that was weird at all? He didn't even question it until you let him think you'd charged the stone with someone he didn't know. Kinda like when _you_ thought I'd found my true love at that truck stop."

"I said 'shut up'."

"And did you catch that 'minimum' of two people? You realize what he was implying?"

"Oh, my God! Shut the hell up! I'm going out for breakfast and coffee. I'm going to go fill my body with bacon and caffeine and pretend you did not just suggest an incestuous angel threesome. Christ, Sammy!"

The fucking moose was _giggling_ as he followed him out to the car.

♥ ♥ ♥

They'd researched pretty much everything they could research and Castiel had basically patted them on the head and told them they could handle it. They'd debated the merits of first going after the lake not-quite-leviathan versus the demon versus the witch and come to the conclusion that the witch was target number one. If they took the witch out then the demon might just cut and run. There was a good chance that the lake monster might just skulk back to whatever depths it had come from too. If it had stayed out of trouble for eons, it probably didn't actually care about chomping on tourists.

So they'd driven back out to the lake, parked out of sight behind Crazy Hazel's shed and then hiked over toward Old Ned's, keeping well clear of the water. They could hear the axe before they got close enough to see Ned's house. The distinctive sound of wood being split was a good reminder to approach with caution. They crept forward until they could just see a man through the trees. Not Old Ned, but a young man with pale blond hair and an even paler face. The part of Dean's brain that was devoted to one-liners was already trying out several riffs on Vikings. More than likely this was their demon, but he wasn't doing anything particularly demon-y at that moment.

Dean tapped Sam on the shoulder to silently get his attention. He'd only meant to indicate that they should stay where they were and keep watch for a bit. But Sam seemed to expect him to say something because he stepped in close, crowding into Dean's personal space even more than Castiel usually did and leaned his big head down so Dean could whisper in his ear. Dean's dick had gotten very confused over the last few weeks of mixed signals. That was absolutely all that was. Dean tried to focus on the demon chopping wood and ignore the wood in his pants.

When he still hadn't said anything and it _should_ have then been clear that he wasn't _planning_ on saying anything and that Sam could just back up a pace, Sam breathed in his ear, "Change of plan? Go after the demon first since he's out in the open?"

That might have been a good plan. Or it might have been a terrible plan.

Dean had absolutely no idea because Sam's lips were _brushing against his ear_ and he could _feel Sam's breath on his skin_ and the one thing that Dean could absolutely not do in that moment was think coherent thoughts of any kind. So Sam was maybe thinking for both of them and knew they needed more power in the stone. Or maybe Sam wasn't thinking at all either.

Sam reached out and touched the side of Dean's head, tilting his head up until Dean had a mouthful of Sam and it was this weird angle with Sam kind of to the side, but mostly behind him so Dean had to tilt his head all the way back and it made him dizzy and maybe he stumbled a little because Sam slipped his arms around him with his hands on Dean's chest and that should have steadied him but he only felt dizzier and Sam's mouth was so wet and there was no point telling his dick to chill out because this here was exactly the kind of mixed signals that had been causing trouble and Dean just sort of gave up and leaned back into Sam's chest confident that the Sasquatch could take his weight and _pretty love words beautiful hot thingie nice thinking hard…_

Sam pulled away and then the freak _bit_ his jaw _and then_ swooped back in to plant a tiny kiss on the tip of Dean's nose. Before Dean could even ask him what his brain damage was, Sam pulled the stone out of Dean's front pocket.

"Purple," Sam announced and maybe Dean was still too dizzy to see clearly, but the stone was covered in glowing veins that he would have even called a _bluish_ sort of purple. "You like it. Mutual. Minimum of two. Not just me."

Yeah, definitely brain damaged. _Not just me._ Wait? What?

"Hello?"

And _of course_ their make-out session had gotten the demon's attention. Shit. He didn't moan, did he? Dean snatched the stone back out of Sam's hand and stalked out of the bushes.

"Hi! Kiss and hug!" Sam scoffed at his side, but the stone flashed. "Told you it didn't have to be Latin."

The demon didn't really give any indication that it had been charmed. He still held the axe—technically a tool and not a weapon, but it looked dangerous enough—though he wasn't making any threatening moves.

"I'm Dean. This is my boyfriend Sam."

Sam did a double-take at the introduction, but didn't flinch away when Dean slung an arm around his neck and pulled him in for a quick kiss. Sam even reciprocated the embrace, sliding his hands over Dean's back.

Dean glanced at the stone, which had a few fresh purple lines, and slipped it back in his pocket. Just in case the witch was nearby it was good to have it reloaded.

"So, can you keep a secret?" he asked the demon, who merely shrugged. "We're here to rescue you."

"Cool," the demon said with less enthusiasm than a rescue really merited. "Ned said you were the Winchester brothers. I guess you're dropping your cover now that it's legal, huh?"

"Now that what's legal?"

"Guy-guy marriage. You don't have to pretend to be brothers anymore."

Dean wasn't sure which freaked him out more, the M-word or the accusation that he and Sam only pretended to be brothers. Not that he could argue the point after introducing Sam as his boyfriend, but, damn, they had a messed up relationship. Hell, they should look for another haunted asylum and see if they could get some on-the-job therapy.

Dean just cleared his throat and changed the subject. "So that collar you've got on?"

The demon unbuttoned another button on his shirt to give them a better view. "Believe me I've tried _everything_."

The collar had Hindu symbols mixed with Nordic runes and a few symbols that Dean suspected Old Ned has just made up. It would seem that he also believed in throwing any spell you could at a problem just in case one of them worked.

"If you try to cut it off, you'll catch fire," the demon added helpfully. "I thought I was about to be rescued by a hiker a couple decades back when I talked him into cutting it off, but... it was messy. Lost half an acre to fire. Would have gotten out of control if it hadn't been close enough to the lake for waves to put it out."

"Waves?" Sam and Dean both echoed.

"Oh, yeah. If you're the Winchesters, you know what's out there. It can get some pretty impressive wave action going when it has a mind to."

"How does Old Ned control it?" Dean asked. "He can't very well put a collar on an oil slick."

The demon shook his head. "Damned if I know. I helped conjure it. It should only be subservient to demonic forces—and, honestly, it wasn't _that_ cooperative when I was in charge, but I kind of led Old Ned to believe I had more control over it than I did and that if he wanted it to do his bidding he'd have to do mine. _That_ was my mistake." The demon rubbed a finger under his collar. "Next thing I know I'm his personal servant and that thing in the lake... as far as I know it doesn't disobey. I don't know if it _can't_ or if it just _hasn't_ , but... there it is."

"This was thirty years ago?" Sam asked.

"Closer to forty. Back when bell bottoms were still in style," the demon added wistfully. "I could rock a pair of bell bottoms."

"You are the only person I know who misses 70s fashion," Dean said.

"Are you kidding? You should have seen the halter tops girls wore back then."

"Damien!" Ned stood on the back deck and glared out at the three of them. "I told you to go into town for the shopping as soon as you were done splitting wood."

"Damien? Your name is _Damien_?"

"Actually it's Nathan, but that apparently wasn't dramatic enough for _some people_. Ow!" Nathan flinched and his eyes flared black for a moment before he yelled back at the house. "I'm going already!" He put the axe on top of the wood pile and fished a set of keys out of his jeans pocket. "Good luck, guys," he muttered as he passed them on the way to the truck.

"Something else I can help you with, _agents_?" Old Ned asked.

"Kiss and hug," Dean said pulling the stone out of his pocket.

"I beg your pardon?"

"What?" Dean asked innocently tucking the stone away.

"Did you just say 'kiss and hug'?"

Old Ned was officially the first person to even _notice_ the magic words though he at least seemed to have failed to process the presence of the stone.

"Uh, yeah, it's just what all the kids say these days back in D.C. Y'know, like 'hang loose' only instead it's 'hug and kiss'."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Old Ned muttered. "Damien, I said 'go'!"

Nathan pulled out of the drive so quickly the truck fishtailed slightly as it turned onto the main road.

"Yeah, whatever. Let's stop pretending," Dean said. "We're not EPA agents. We're the Winchesters. You're a witch. Nathan is a demon. That creepy-ass thing living out in the lake is… a creepy-ass thing that probably belongs in a different lake or something."

"Cave," Old Ned supplied. "Though I do believe an underground lake was involved."

"How did it get here?" Sam asked.

"Damien summoned it through an underwater spring."

"And now it's eating people."

"Oh, it hardly ever eats anyone."

"And a dog," Sam added as if that were the key point here.

"That damn dog barked at squirrels. Squirrels. Every damn squirrel that stupid dog saw. Do you have any idea how many squirrels there are out here?"

"That's no reason to—" Sam began

"How do you control it?" Dean asked before Sam could go off on one of his rants.

"That's my secret."

"You can tell us," Dean said with his most endearing smile. "We're all friends here."

"You know, I do like you boys. You're funny. I think I'll kill you _before_ I have Damien dump your bodies in the lake."

"What?" Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam was already backing away slowly. "That's, uh, that's your idea of friendship is it?"

"Based on the screams, I imagine it's quite painful being dissolved one layer at a time. So I'd be doing you quite a favor by killing you first."

"How exactly were you planning to kill us? Do you have a special hex for that?"

"Oh, I was just going to shoot you," he said pulling a large revolver out of his cardigan pocket.

Old Ned was not nearly as old as Crazy Hazel, but he was not a young man. Nor did Dean imagine he had ever been particularly athletic. An old revolver of that size would have quite a kick to it. Ned possibly knew that. Maybe he did regular target shooting. Maybe he was a better marksman than Dean gave him credit for. But Dean's instincts told him this was a guy accustomed to delegating his dirty work, a guy who sure as hell was not taking down the Winchesters.

He was going for his own gun when Sam reached the same conclusion about Old Ned's threat level, but came to a different conclusion. "Run!"

Sam ran.

Old Ned fired.

The shot went wild and Old Ned actually _dropped_ his gun on the recoil. Dean turned to run after Sam and then saw what Sam had seen.

The thing was there, right there at the shore, looking less like an oil slick and more like God had taken a giant pair of scissors and just cut a big hole in the fabric of the universe. They ran like hell all the way back to the car and every time that Dean glanced at the lake through the trees, the thing was _right_ there, matching their pace exactly.

When he backed the Impala out from behind the shed, he got just a bit too close to the lake and they felt, as well as heard, a wave hit up against the back bumper.

"Shit! That's more than twenty yards!" Sam said.

Dean thought it was only something like fifteen, but he wasn't going to stop and measure it. He didn't slow down until they were back in the motel parking lot. When he checked Baby for damage, he expected to find her tail lights covered in black goo. He did not expect to find them bone dry and cleaner than ever. The rear bumper was also shiny and completely free of road grime.

"I think it only eats organic matter," Sam suggested. "Or at least it doesn't really have a taste for outboard motors and cars."

"We need to step up our game," Dean announced flatly.

"Yeah, but, how? I mean, Ned's mortal and also a terrible shot so we can take him out no problem, but that thing… Maybe we should call Castiel again? I know he thought the stone was enough, but… it didn't even work on Ned for more than a minute or two."

"That's because Ned is an asshole," Dean said. "I don't think that guy has had a friend in his life. Purple? Not gonna cut it. _We. Need. To. Step. Up. Our. Game._ " And because Sam still didn't get it, Dean jerked his hand up and down and then pointed at the second motel room next door. "Separate rooms. I am not looking at you when we do this. But we're doing this. Okay?"

"Oh! Uh, yeah, I guess purple kind of is, like, the lowest setting and we got it up to blue-green before with, uh, yeah."

"Okay?" Dean repeated. "I'm not trying to strong-arm you into this. If this is too weird for you, say so. You don't want to do this for any reason, just say so. We'll shoot Ned, exorcise Nathan, and, hell, maybe there are other hunters out there with more stable love lives who can deal with the thing in the lake. We can hand over the stone. It's up to you."

"Dean, are you seriously asking me if I'm too prissy to masturbate? Did we not just have this conversation before breakfast?"

"Are we on or not?!"

Sam actually put his hands on his hips and stared him down. "We are totally on!"

"Good!"

"Good!"

Sam and Dean just stared at each other across the parking lot for a moment before stalking off to their separate motel rooms.

♥ ♥ ♥

Dean walked in and groaned when he saw all of Sam's crap still strewn all over the bed and then groaned again when he realized it was _less_ of a mess than when they'd left it. Sam's clothing and books were still sort of overflowing out of the bag which was back on the bed, but the bed itself _had been made_ and everything on it had been put back in place slightly neater than before. And the damn dildo was right there on top. Shit. How could they just leave everything lying out in the open like that without so much as a _Do Not Disturb_ sign on the door? They usually put their bags back into the car every time they left a motel, even if they were planning to come back in a few hours, just in case they had to skip town fast. Sam had been the last one out the door. It was totally his fault. His clothes and his freaky sex toy should have been locked up safe in the car where strangers wouldn't be pawing them. Dumbass.

Housekeeping wouldn't be back again the same day, but he made sure the _Do Not Disturb_ sign was in place anyway. Dean felt oddly exposed. He was used to doing this in the shower, not in a big open room. Even his first few times in his room at the bunker had been strange, constantly having to remind himself that Sam wasn't going to walk in and catch him with his hands on the goods.

If they'd had their typical double room, he would have just taken the other bed, but, with the ladies in mind, they'd gotten two rooms with just one queen each. With a few more curses, Dean shoved everything onto the floor. He placed the stone on the bedside table where he'd have a clear view of it. Unlike last night, this was not going to be a wasted effort; he'd make damn sure of it.

He knew he needed to be on the bed, close to Sam on the other side of the wall. But he wasn't sure if he should strip all the way down or just unzip enough to reach what he needed. The motel was actually a bit nicer than typical Winchester standards (also in deference to the ladies) and a box of tissues and lotion had been provided in the bathroom so he brought those out and set them next to the stone.

Dean unzipped and tugged his jeans just low enough to keep the zipper's teeth away from any sensitive areas. He lotioned up one hand and slipped it inside his underwear just as his phone buzzed with a text message.

He sighed, considered ignoring it, and then realized that wondering what the message was would just keep him distracted. He got up and crossed the room muttering, "Better be important," while actually hoping it was nothing at all so he could get back to what he was doing.

It was Sam. " **Gimme a min. Wanna shwr frst.** "

"Prissy bastard," Dean grumbled to himself. "I already started."

But that wasn't really true. He was trying, but his dick was floppy and disinterested despite its earlier enthusiasm at the lake.

And, yeah, the woods had been gross and the more he thought about it, the itchier he felt. So, okay, quick shower.

" **K** ," Dean texted back.

He added the phone to his collection of items on the bedside table and then stripped off for the shower. As he passed by the heap of Sam's crap on the floor, he glanced at the dildo and, without really questioning why, he picked it up and took it to the bathroom to wash it off. It was really Sam's problem if he did weird things to himself with a sex toy that some stranger had had their fingers on, but it still weirded Dean out. So he soaped it off carefully and tried not to think about the fact that this thing had been up Sammy's butt. He failed and, as a result, probably washed it about three times as long as necessary because _gross_.

The thing had a hole all the way through it where it tapered at one end, which made Dean assume, when he first saw it, that it was some kind of ugly-ass pendant that was missing its chain. And, yeah, even then his subconscious mind had filled in that it was probably an ugly-ass _fertility_ pendant, but he hadn't really thought beyond vague phallus imagery. He nearly dropped it a few times, slippery with soap, and it was only by gripping the ring end that he saved it from falling. So he figured that was probably the purpose of the hole, otherwise the dildo was short enough that it would be real easy to lose up in... there. And that would just be an embarrassing trip to the emergency room right there.

 _Oh, my God, Sam actually sticks this up his butt,_ Dean thought again. The idea was shocking and incomprehensible _every_ time he thought it. He plunked the thing down on a hand towel to dry and then hopped into the shower.

He was getting hard even before he got the water to the right temperature. Lately his dick just seemed to have a perverse sense of timing—barely into it at all when he had the time and opportunity, yet thrumming with anticipation when Dean couldn't do anything about.

"Soon enough, fella," Dean muttered, making the conscious effort to keep to the business of washing himself off. They hadn't tested their range yet, but he feared they were too far apart and, even if they weren't, Sammy had asked him to wait and they had to be doing this _together_ or there was no point.

It was a quick shower and Dean toweled off and hurried back to the phone to make sure he hadn't missed another text. He hadn't.

He paced around for a minute before taking the initiative to text Sam. " **Ready when you are.** "

It was an interminable wait before Sam texted back. " **Ready.** "

It was probably unnecessary, but, to make it official, Dean texted, " **Go.** "

He folded the towel under his head and double-checked that he could still see the stone easily and then squeezed out a nice generous handful of lotion. His go-to fantasy involved a space princess and he was already trying to picture the scenario where the gravity generator conks out when he remembered that he was supposed to be thinking about Sam. Cas had been clear enough on that point. They had to be doing this together, _with_ each other, _thinking about_ each other. God, Sam had admitted that he was thinking about Dean when he jerked off that time. And Sam had looked so _happy_ afterward in the truck stop, too. Damn, that was kind of cool, that he could make Sam happy like that.

 _Okay, so thinking about Sam. Sam. Sam. Sam._ Dean glanced at the stone, but it didn't seem to be glowing yet at all. And he kinda already knew that because this wasn't really doing anything for him either. _I love Sam,_ he thought firmly. _I love Sam more than I could ever love anyone else in the entire world, ever._ And Sam was beautiful, like he wouldn't want to admit it to his stupid face, but... even his stupid face was kind of beautiful.

And Sam was in the next room, naked and touching himself and probably trying to think nice things about Dean too.

And obviously failing because the damn stone was just sitting there all gray and boring.

Dean stroked himself a few more times. It felt good with the potential to feel much better, but _Player 2_ had clearly not entered the game. One more good stroke and then he gave up and grabbed the phone.

Sam's voice on the other end was uncertain. "Dean?"

"Sam, what the hell are you doing over there? Because I'm doing _my_ part and the stone is still gray. Are you even touching yourself?"

"Yes!"

"You have a boner?"

"Not... quite... exactly."

"Not quite a boner sounds like a lack of a boner."

"Well, it's sort of... halfway to... kind of half-mast."

"Halfway to half-mast also sounds like not-a-boner. What's the problem?"

"Dude, it's not that easy to just get a boner on demand and we both had sex just last night and I'm not seventeen anymore."

"Man, don't use that as an excuse. I'm older than you are and I got a boner no problem."

"You're hard?" Sam asked and the stone maybe glowed just a little bit when he said it, which was kind of interesting. Did Sam get off on dirty talk?

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean said, a deliberate purr in his voice. "I am hard _right now_. We just need to get you up to speed."

The stone was definitely glowing—pale purple, but glowing.

"Are you," Sam said, his breath catching slightly. "Are you leaking pre-ejaculate yet?"

Dean considered lying if it would help, but decided to keep it real. "Not yet. It's early going. But I'm definitely hard."

"Are you touching yourself _right now_?" Sam asked. "Like right now while you're talking to me on the phone?"

He hadn't been, but, for the sake of keeping himself honest, he reached down and took himself in hand again. "Yeah, Sammy, I'm stroking myself _right now_."

He could hear Sam breathing into the phone and the stone was glowing with a nice unmistakable shade of purple. "I want you to do something for me. Okay, Sam?" There was no response and he repeated, "Sammy?" and the stone glowed just a tiny bit more.

Dean laughed. "I thought you didn't like it when I called you 'Sammy'. Liar."

"Oh, my God, you cheater! Put the stone away where you can't see it. That's not fair."

"No way. This is awesome. And I'm going to make it awesome for you, too, because the stone is helping me know exactly which buttons of yours to push. _And you want me to make it good for you, don't you, Sammy?_ " Dean asked, breathing the last words as silkily as he could.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. What, what did you want me to do?"

Dean didn't really have anything particular in mind so he just started with the obvious basics.

"I want you to reach down to the base of your dick, nice and loose, circle your fingers around it. Keep it loose, don't tug, but just slide your hand all the way to the tip."

"That's it?" He should have known that Sam would start critiquing.

"You have lotion over there?"

"Already using it."

"Rub it all over your balls," Dean said and felt his own balls tighten up at the thought.

"Mmm-hmmm."

"Take it all the way back out to the tip." Dean's hand followed his own directions as he talked. "And then back down to your balls."

"I'm, uh, I'm getting hard. Keep, keep talking."

Dean had to take his hand off of himself. He was getting too close and Sam had just barely started, but he was getting Sam there _with his voice alone_ which was kind of amazing. "Good boy," he said and out of the corner of his eye he saw the stone picking up a blue tint. "Now reach under your balls. Rub yourself there."

"I like that," Sam whispered.

"Yeah?" Dean asked, rubbing a finger under his own scrotum, imagining Sam following his orders.

"Yeah."

"Slide a finger back. Further back." Dean rubbed a finger over his rectum and wondered, _Would Sam do it? If I asked, would he?_

"Don't hint," Sam said. "Say it. I want to hear you say it."

"Stroke your asshole, you asshole."

Sam laughed. "Okay. Now what?"

"Slide a finger inside," Dean whispered, trying to imagine what kind of sounds Sam might make with his fingers inside himself.

"No."

That...was unexpected. "Aw, come on. You already admitted you like that kind of thing."

"I don't have any lube."

"You have lotion," Dean pointed out.

"I'm not putting mystery motel lotion up my butt. That's _not_ the place you want to get a weird rash."

"Damn."

" _You_ have lube though," Sam said, suddenly cheerful. "I forgot and left my bag over there. _You_ can stick your finger in your butt."

"Not really my thing," Dean said.

"Oh, my God, you have my dildo, too."

"No."

"Please?"

"Just stroke your dick and leave my ass out of it, okay?"

Dean's rectum itched from the conversation the way your nose will itch when someone mentions an itch and your hands are full so you can't scratch. However, in this case, the only thing his hands were full of was the cell phone in a single hand, so he had a finger to spare to rub it—just to get rid of the itch.

"You're no fun."

"What else do you like?" Dean asked, moving his hand back to the more familiar territory of his shaft, slow lazy strokes so he wouldn't get ahead of Sam again. "It can't be _all_ butt stuff."

"I like... I don't know. Everything."

"You don't actually mean everything. I could take that as a challenge and start listing stuff to see what grosses you out."

"No. Ew," Sam said immediately. "I know how your brain works. Okay, so not _everything_. But, y'know, the basics. I like blow jobs and fucking and having my nipples licked..."

It was pushing the boundaries a little, but... "If I were over there now, Sammy, I would be happy to lick your nipples. I would lick all around them and suck on them and..."

"Bite them?" Sam asked, sounding oddly hopeful.

"Bite?!"

"Well, not _bite_ -bite. I'm not really into pain, but... y'know..."

"Nibble a little?" Dean suggested.

"God, yeah. God. Fuck." Sam's breath was getting pretty heavy and Dean checked the stone again. Blue. Not even a little bit purple. Awesome.

"Yeah, Sammy. I'd nibble on your chest and lick and suck you anywhere you wanted. I'd lick you _anywhere_ you asked me to. What, uh, what would you do to me?"

"I'd eat your ass," Sam said without hesitation.

"You'd what?!" Dean's hand froze on his dick.

"I want to give you a rim job, Dean. I want to show you how good it feels. I want to work my tongue inside you until you're _begging_ me for more."

"Sam, that's gross." And hot. Kind of hot. A lot hot actually. "That's... I could never ask you to do something like that."

"It would feel so good, Dean."

"I don't doubt that it would _feel_ good. Christ, I'm, uh, I'm starting to drip over here. God. But, but I could never... there are places you don't ask someone to put their tongue, y'know."

"If you're that concerned about hygiene, you can always use the dildo," Sam said and Dean could hear the teasing in his voice. "It's clean, I swear. I wash it every time."

And he should really refuse. Using his brother's _actual_ dildo? How weird was that? But, he really was just oozing pre-ejaculate at this point and the sound of Sam getting hot and bothered on the other end of the phone was possibly the hottest thing ever.

"Would that do it for you, Sammy?"

"Oh, God, yeah! You really would? Oh, yes, yes, yes! Please?"

Frankly, butt stuff notwithstanding, Dean had expected Sam to be a little more... _manly_ during sex. It was a little early for begging wasn't it? Shit. Did he just think of this as sex? No way this counted as sex. They weren't even in the same room. This, this was just jacking off. Jacking off was normal. Everybody jacked off. And _how_ you jacked off wasn't anybody else's place to judge, was it?

"Please." Sam kind of whimpered that time and he'd lost the hopeful edge to his voice which just made it sad.

"Okay, okay. Hold on. I have to get the stuff."

"The lube is in my bag," Sam repeated. "Most massage oil isn't safe for internal use."

"Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Dr. Science."

"And there's a pen in the outside pocket that you'll want, too."

"What would I need a pen for?"

"Trust me. Oh, God, hurry. Tell me when you've got everything."

 _Trust me_. What was it about those words that always inspired suspicion? Dean got up and checked the bottle of massage oil because, damn it, he'd paid good money for that and it smelled nice too, but Sam was right. The small print said it was for "external use only". So he got the lube out of the pile of Sam's things and fetched the dildo from the bathroom and, with a slight sense of foreboding, also fished out the pen from the side pocket of Sam's bag.

"Okay, I've got everything. Seriously, man, what's the pen for?"

"Slide it through the hole in the end of the dildo and you've got a handle. Also it keeps it from going in too far so you don't, uh, lose it."

Dean slipped the pen into the ring and, sure enough, he now had a handle perpendicular to the shaft of the dildo so that it couldn't possibly slide in any farther. "How many times did you have to fish this back out of your ass before you figured out this trick?"

"Once. Once was more than enough. Quit stalling. Lube it up real good. Lube yourself up real good. You're going to love this, Dean, it's going to feel so good."

"I'll deny I said this later, but I _have_ done this before. I mean there was always a chick doing it _to_ me, but I am not an ass virgin and, honestly, I never saw what the big deal was."

"Please, Dean. I'll talk you through it. I'll show you how to make it good. So good."

Sam sounded like he was fucking losing it and _that_ was pretty damn hot. "I have to put the phone down so I can get everything ready."

"Put me on speaker!"

Dean did and there was something just extra pervy about Sam panting on speaker phone.

Dean smeared lube all over the dildo and over his asshole and then hesitantly lined it up. It was cold in his hand and was definitely going to feel weird going in. He gave it a little shove, expecting some resistance and was startled when it just sort of popped right in. Before he knew it, the makeshift handle was flush against him and he had to quickly readjust it to keep it from pinching his balls.

"Damn, that was a lot easier than I expected."

"It's going in?"

"It's in. It's already in."

"The magic of lube."

"Yeah. So, uh... this thing is a little chilly."

"Weird, isn't it?"

"Very."

"It's okay. It'll warm up with your body heat and, uh, friction. Are you, um, are you still hard?"

He was obviously playing it too cool if Sam even doubted that. "Yeah, Sammy, I'm still hard."

"Awesome," Sam said, his voice unusually high. "Use the handle. Tilt it. You know where your prostate is. You should be able to reach it. Nice and easy. Are you doing it?"

"I'm doing it," Dean said. It was kind of _interesting_. but nowhere near worth all of Sam's fussing.

"It's good, yeah?"

Again, he considered lying, but lying about sex just made things messy later and made people repeat things that hadn't been that great the first time. Better to save the encouraging words for things you actually wanted to do again. "Honestly, Sam, it kind of just makes me feel like I need to pee."

"But you're still hard?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm hard and I'm horny and I also kind of feel like I need to pee. My prostate is a bit confused right now. Lots of mixed signals."

"Yeah, yeah. It's okay. It kind of starts like that," Sam said and he was making little noises that were too faint to really be called moans exactly, more like the sounds Dean made when he ate a really good cheeseburger. It made Dean self-conscious of the speaker phone. Even slightly muffled on the pillow next to his head, it felt like Sam's porno noises were echoing through the room. "Just keep doing it and, and, uh, and stroke your dick at the same time and rub your balls."

"Dude, how many hands do you think I have?"

"Right, sorry. You've got to try it with another person sometime so you have enough hands for everything."

Did Sam completely ignore the part where he admitted doing this with chicks before? It still wasn't hot. Heck, knowing a chick could replace you with a piece of plastic was actually a little bit of a turn- _off_.

"You could play with your dick _and_ your balls while I shove the dildo up your ass _and_ still have a hand free for your nipples," Sam panted.

And, _whoa, did Sam just...? Er, okay, fantasizing is normal. Not judging. Whatever._

"What are _you_ doing?" Dean asked, hoping to talk about something other than his prostate.

"I'm rubbing my dick," Sam said and Dean could hear the smile in his voice. Sam was _proud_ of himself, the little shit.

"Got a hand on your balls?" Dean asked, imagining Sam stroking himself with one hand and fondling his balls with the other, fingers sneaking towards his asshole.

"Nah. Rubbing the tip. I've got so much pre-ejaculate now I'd barely need lube if I were there. I smear it off and more just wells up."

Sam was rubbing his tip? And comparing his pre-come to lube? While asking Dean to use a dildo? That meant that he was imagining... "Bitch!"

"Actually," Sam laughed, "in this particular scenario, technically _you're_ the bitch."

Dean was never, ever, _ever_ telling Sam that that was the moment the stone flared green and Dean had to pull the damn dildo out so he could regroup and avoid ending it right then and there.

"Tell me, Sammy, how would you make me your bitch?" Dean asked, his ass clamping down on nothing. "You think you can take me? Pin me to the mattress?"

Sam was suddenly all serious. "No, Dean. I would never do that to you. You have to know that—"

The kid really sucked at this. "Work with me on this, Sam."

"Oh," Sam said, finally catching on. "Right. Right. Um... I'd totally pin you to the mattress. Tie you to the bedposts."

The hotel had those plain solid headboards with no bedposts, but Dean tried to ignore that and go with the fantasy.

"I'd tie your legs open and..."

"How do you tie someone's legs _open_?"

Sam grunted before answering. "I'd tie ropes from your ankles to the bedposts and spread you open."

"Bedposts at the foot of the bed?"

"Yes! Jesus, Dean, why are you being so difficult about this?"

"I'm trying to picture this in my head. You're not being very clear."

"Maybe you're focusing on the wrong things."

"I just need a mental image."

"Fine! Picture this. One of those old brass beds with rails at the head and the foot of the bed, okay? Imagine we're on a case that takes us to a really nice romantic bed-and-breakfast place."

"We're not on a haunted house case are we? Because that's creepy thinking ghosts are watching us get freaky."

"Not haunted. Okay, it's a case involving, um, a fertility god. I've been possessed by a fertility god and so I tie you to the bed to perform my perverse fertility rituals, okay?"

"No."

"Dean."

"No. That's weird. I'm not jacking off while you talk about being possessed by some rapey fertility god. If it's not you, it doesn't work."

"Yeah, but why would _I_ be tying you to a bed?"

"Sex pollen?" Dean suggested.

"What's sex pollen?"

"So you remember the planet with the weird flowers that shot pollen at the crew of the _Enterprise_ until, one by one, everyone went kinda loopy and even Spock was going to run away to play with his girlfriend? Like that, only more X-rated."

"Is sex pollen a thing in your cartoon porn?"

"Please, Sam, I was almost there and now I'm just getting really unfocused."

"Okay, fine, sex pollen. So we're on this case and we finish the hunt and we defeat the fertility god and we're both all sweaty and worked up, but just when we think it's safe, I get hit with _sex pollen_ and you don't realize it so you get naked in front of me to take a shower and that's more than I can stand, so I grab you and throw you face-down on the bed with your bare ass in the air and demand that you _give it to me_ , but you try and fight me off, so I tie you to the brass bed with your legs spread wide and I lie down on top of you, crushing you into the mattress, and I rub my big hard dick on your ass, up and down along the cleft of your ass, and every time I slide down, I get closer and closer, until I'm rubbing the head of my dick right against your asshole—"

"Oh, fuck, yeah!" The stone crackled as even more veins appeared and the green was fading into a brighter lime. Dean got the dildo back into position, just rubbing it over the outside of his hole to match Sam's narrative, ready to shove it back in the moment Sam said so.

"—and your pupils are blown wide so I can barely even see the green in your eyes and you're still fighting, but you can't hide that you are throbbing hard for me and then I start sucking on your nipples and you finally can't take it anymore and _beg_ me to fuck you!"

"How can you reach my nipples if I'm face down?"

"What?"

"You clearly said that you'd tied me face down and you're rubbing your dick on my ass. How can you possibly suck my nipples in that position?"

"Seriously?!"

"And how can you see my eyes or my hard-on for that matter?"

"I flipped you over, okay?"

"When? You'd have to untie me to do that. Why would you untie me just to get at my nipples."

"Because I have a nipple fetish, okay?! Jesus! I give up. Your turn. _You_ tell _me_ a story. God, please tell me the stone is at least blue already."

The stone was glowing a bright greenish-yellow. "Um, actually, it's a bit _greenish_. Yeah, definitely greenish."

"Cool, _greenish_ -blue. That, like, ties our record. So, uh, let's just, uh, _wrap this up_ , okay? Because I'm kind of, um, God, Dean, I _really_ need to get off. Please. Any scenario you want, I don't care, but let's just do this, okay? Because I swear I'm ready to just come over there and give it to you for real."

The stone wasn't even greenish anymore. It was pretty much pure yellow and Dean was completely over any attempts at subtlety. He slipped the dildo home and angled it at his prostate using the handle to work a steady rhythm.

"So, you've tied me to the bed," Dean said and Sam hummed his approval. "And you're rubbing your dick against my ass and your dick slides _under_ me, under my balls and up against my hard-on, dick on dick, and that's when you realize how turned on I am and I know there's no point pretending I don't want it anymore so I tell you to take what you need from me and you slide your big warm dick _inside_ me and—"

And Nathan the demon Viking kicked in the motel room door. Dean was bent into a ridiculous position with his legs spread and the dildo up his butt and his weapons all the way on the other side of the motel room. Even the stone was out of reach. He lunged for it, screaming, "Sammy, it's the demon!" but Nathan was suddenly on top of him, strangling him. As he blacked out, Dean thought that this had to be the most humiliating way to die possible.

♥ ♥ ♥


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This chapter has a bit more gore than the rest of the story, but it's nothing worse than you've seen on the show and your boys themselves are only mildly scuffed and bruised, I promise.)

♥ ♥ ♥ 

They were kids again, sleeping in the Impala's backseat while Dad drove through the night. 

Bright daylight assaulted Dean's eyes the moment his lids flickered open even a sliver and he squeezed them shut against the throbbing in his head. So maybe it wasn't night after all.

"Dean? You okay?"

Sam's voice was too deep and the body beneath him too big. They weren't kids, hadn't been kids in a million years. Dad wasn't driving.

_Who's driving?_

And that was all wrong. He couldn't hear Baby's engine. He could hear the road noise and feel the bump of the potholes, but no engine. Another vehicle's engine in the distance made the Impala's silence even eerier. It was like she was cruising along dead, a ghost car. He ignored the pain and opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but found his hands immobile behind his back.

"Sam?"

"You were out for a couple minutes," Sam said. "I was getting worried."

"I can't hear the engine," Dean said, still feeling confused.

Sam laughed and Dean had to admit that it was an odd opening line after nearly dying.

"Nathan is towing us," Sam explained.

Dean braced his forehead on Sam's chest and readjusted his position, taking stock of himself and the situation. Nothing broken, not bleeding, hands _and_ feet bound, Sam presumably the same, fully clothed at least. His dick was raw and sore against the denim of his jeans so—check that—not _fully_ clothed, definitely no underwear. "Sam, please tell me that you're the one that dressed me."

"Sorry, that was Nathan."

It didn't bear thinking about, but he had to ask. "The dildo?"

"He at least let me be the one to pull that out, yeah. He didn't do anything weird to you while you were unconscious, I promise."

"Jesus. I know how he got the drop on _me_ , but how the hell did he get _both_ of us? This is a single ordinary demon who can't even outsmart an elderly man."

"He made me hand over my gun," Sam said.

" _How?_ "

"He had a knife to your throat, Dean!"

"You could have at least gotten away. You didn't have to hand over your gun."

"I couldn't leave you."

"Of course you could have. Save yourself. Regroup. And _then_ rescue me."

"Dean, you were unconscious and naked and... very _vulnerable_!" which was clearly code for _had a dildo up your butt_. "I wasn't going to leave you. Also, I didn't have the car keys because I was also kind of naked at the time."

Dean laughed into Sam's chest. "Oh, my God. You came running over _with_ a gun, but _no_ pants."

"I didn't think I had time to spare," Sam said sullenly.

"Oh, wow, Nathan got quite the show between the two of us, didn't he?" Dean was still laughing, but it was a miserable sort of laugh. "You know what my worst nightmare is, Sam? Someday I'm going to die and go to Heaven this time and Bobby's going to be waiting for me with this big long _list_ of things that he wants an explanation for."

Sam started laughing then too. " _'How'n the **hell** you boys let one demon get the drop on **botha** ya?'_ Oh, yeah, Heaven or Hell, we're screwed either way."

The car slowed and turned and there were a series of jerks as the Impala bumped into the back of the pickup. "That sonabitch is paying for a new bumper," Dean muttered.

The rear door of the Impala opened and Nathan called almost cheerfully, "We're here. Up and at 'em." 

He pulled Dean out and plunked him onto his feet in the dirt driveway. It was only then that Dean realized he was still barefoot. That would put him at a disadvantage in a fight. A solid pair of work boots were something Dean took for granted when someone needed a good kick.

Dean had to do an undignified hop to keep his balance even leaning on the side of the car. His ass was still slick and his jeans just felt weird. 

He expected Nathan to pull Sam out next, but the demon slammed the door and then picked Dean back up and slung him over his shoulder. Dean had only a few seconds to do upside down recon. They were, as expected, back at Old Ned's place. The Impala's front bumper was tied to the pickup's trailer hitch in a way that almost guaranteed she was going to have a nasty dent front and center. "You're paying for a new bumper," Dean grumbled again.

"Yeah, okay," Nathan said as he ducked through the front door of the house.. "I'll see if Toby can hammer it out first though."

"Don't you dare let Toby anywhere near Baby!" Dean yelled as Nathan dumped him onto the rug of Old Ned's living room. Nathan turned and walked back out without responding, so Dean yelled again, "Toby does not _touch_ my car!"

Old Ned walked into Dean's line of sight and crossed his arms in a pompous sort of way and, before he could give whatever _I have you, my pretty_ speech he was planning, Dean demanded, "Who's Toby?!"

Old Ned only squinted at him and when Nathan walked back in and dumped Sam on the rug next to Dean, Old Ned repeated the question to Nathan. "Who's Toby? What's he talking about?"

"Toby. Tall. Red hair. Looks like the mutant offspring of Richie Cunningham and Larry Byrd."

"Conan O'Brien?" Sam suggested, having missed the beginning of the conversation.

Nathan shrugged. "You never go into town. You wouldn't know him. But I'm pretty sure he can fix the car, no problem." The demon turned and left through the front door again.

"Damien!" Old Ned snapped after him.

"You know his name isn't actually Damien, right?" Sam asked.

"Toby does _not_ touch my car!" Dean yelled again, but absolutely no one was paying any attention to him.

Nathan returned and dumped Sam's bag onto the floor next to them. "That's everything they had in the room. There's more in the car, but they've got some kind of ward on the trunk so if what you're looking for isn't here, you'll have to go out and look yourself."

"And what does Toby have to do with any of this?" Old Ned asked, looking exactly like the confused elderly man that he was.

"You ordered me to capture the Winchesters and bring back all of their belongings. The car is one of their belongings, yeah, so I towed it back. I might have scuffed up the front end a bit in the process though. Should I drive the car out to Toby now or wait until you've had a chance to search the trunk?"

Nathan gave the impression of still being charmed—or maybe he was just feeling optimistic about their promise to rescue him—but clearly Old Ned's orders took precedence. Old Ned himself was an ornery old cuss and they hadn't gotten him with a very strong charge; he'd clearly shaken off all the effects.

"Toby is some sort of mechanic then," Old Ned said sounding a bit more sure of himself.

Nathan frowned. "I'm not sure if he's an actual mechanic, but he wears overalls and he does things with scrap metal and a blow torch."

"Define _things_!" Dean demanded.

"We'll deal with the car later," Old Ned said firmly. "Let's see if it's in this bag first."

Nathan picked the bag back up and then upended it on a table near the picture window. Dean twisted himself around to see and managed to brace himself against the couch. He realized, as his too-long jeans tangled under his heels, that he was actually wearing Sam's clothes. Nathan had dressed him with clothes from Sam's bag. 

The picture window faced the lake. Their angle from the floor was too low to see if the thing was still out there in the lake, but Dean had a feeling it was _right there_ looming just out of sight. All the thing needed was its own John Williams score. 

Old Ned walked over to the table and began pawing through Sam's things. He shook out the clothes, checked the pockets, and then one by one dumped them on the floor.

Sam "Hrmphed" where he'd managed to prop himself up at Dean's side, but didn't actually say anything.

"Looking for something in particular?" Dean asked, not feeling encouraged by this new development.

"Oh, you know what I'm looking for," Old Ned told him. "Word has spread that the Winchesters have gotten their hands on the Pharaoh's Heart, a stone that can control the heart of even your greatest enemy."

"I didn't see any petrified pharaoh hearts in there," Nathan added.

'It doesn't necessarily look like a heart. Though it might. All I know for sure is that it's a stone." 

Old Ned continued to sort Sam's things. Clothing tossed on the floor, weapons grouped at one side, books on the other. The clothes Dean had been wearing earlier got tossed on the floor with Sam's and Dean noticed their boots there as well. In between were miscellaneous unsorted items: cell phones, wallets, watches, a couple of pens, a bottle of holy water, the stone itself now covered in so many veins it was nearly solid yellow and didn't look like a stone at all, lube, massage oil, toothpaste, toothbrush, mouthwash, shower gel, first aid kit, the fucking marble dildo, deodorant, and a bag of Tootsie Rolls which Sam had been holding out on him.

"Why didn't you tell me you had Tootsie Rolls?"

"Greenish?" Sam asked, ignoring him. "Are you color blind?"

"It was greenish at the time."

"Greenish _blue_?"

"I never said that."

At first he thought Old Ned was ignoring them on purpose, but he was starting to think the old man was hard of hearing and their whispering might actually be going under his radar. Regardless, the glowing stone caught his eye. Old Ned held it up for a closer look.

"It's a cell phone charger," Sam said. 

"There's no plug," Old Ned said, doubtfully.

"It's solar," Dean said.

"There's nowhere to plug the _phone_ into it," Old Ned said, turning the stone over in his hands.

"That's the new kind," Nathan said. "They're called charging pads. All you have to do is put the phone on it and it charges. I think Apple makes that one."

Score one for the demon. 

Old Ned picked up one of the cell phones and tried to balance it on the stone. It would have worked when the stone was flat and gray, but it really did expand with each bulging vein. It was now roughly misshapen and the phone wobbled precariously.

"Actually, that model goes _under_ the charger," Sam quickly added.

Old Ned put the stone on top of the phone this time and peered at it closely, adjusting his eyeglasses. "Is it working?"

"Oh, yeah, see those bars." Nathan pointed at the phone. "That means it's charging."

Score _two_ for the demon. Good thing Old Ned didn't know the first thing about cell phones.

Old Ned nodded and moved on to the dildo.

"Oh, God," Dean muttered, bracing himself for Nathan to tell the tale of how he'd captured the naked Winchester brothers mid-masturbation session.

The demon winked at him, but held his tongue.

Ned picked up the dildo and nearly dropped it as it slipped in his hand. "Holy oil?" he asked, offering the dildo to Nathan for closer inspection.

Nathan recoiled. "Whoa! Ew! I, ew, I don't know what that is, but it's definitely some kind of demon repellant. I'm not touching that. I used a shirt to pick it up with the first time."

"As soon as we're done here, we need to find another laundromat so I can wash _all_ of my shirts again," Sam whispered in Dean's ear.

Old Ned sniffed at it and the demon and the Winchester brothers all grimaced.

"I can't quite place the scent. Musky."

"Dude," Sam whispered. "Did you use the scented massage oil even when I told you not to?"

"No. Unscented lube. That's pure Dean Winchester musk is what that is."

And then Old Ned licked his finger to a chorus of "Ew!" from the peanut gallery.

"Dude, what are you so grossed out about?" Dean asked Sam. "Weren't you the one suggesting doing that with your own tongue, only like _directly_?" 

"That's different," Sam insisted.

"How?"

He looked at Sam and immediately regretted it, regretted bringing the subject up, regretted everything. They were shoulder to shoulder, their personal space non-existent, and Dean had to go and bring up the fact that they'd been sharing _sex fantasies_ while… doing what they'd been doing. And it was already all shades of wrong when it was phone sex, like _all kinds_ of _so much_ wrong, but face-to-face? Sam was just staring at him slackjawed. Simple rule: you never, ever bring up someone's sex fantasies outside of actual intimacy. _Idiot._

"How does it work?" Old Ned asked, holding out the dildo.

_You shove it up your butt and wiggle it around, preferably while someone really hot whispers disgusting fantasies in your ear,_ Dean thought, blanking on what the actual question was. And then it suddenly hit him. The dumb witch thought the dildo was the stone.

"Uh, the lore says True Love's Kiss," Dean said. "We haven't really had much success with it."

Old Ned nodded in understanding. "They do say the Winchester brothers always travel alone. Bit difficult to find true love that way, I suppose."

"Wait," Nathan said. "You're brothers, for real?"

Dean smiled defiantly and nodded. He really did not need a demon judging him at this point in his life.

"How exactly are you planning to make it work?" Sam asked. "Because the guy we got it off of hadn't been able to use it despite some pretty powerful love spells."

"You don't know the meaning of 'powerful spells'," Old Ned insisted. And it sounded lame, but the dude had a captive demon _and_ a primordial lake monster doing his bidding so he might have had a point.

Old Ned walked over to his desk and rifled around in several drawers before he found whatever he was looking for. He returned with a thin leather strap. "Do you have anything else to tell me about this stone?" he asked.

"No. No. That about covers it. Sam?"

"Nope. Good luck with it."

Old Ned slipped the strap through the hole in the end of the dildo and then tied it into a loop. The next thing Dean knew, Old Ned was wearing an ugly-ass fertility pendant. 

Dean would have laughed in his face, but the next words out of the witch's mouth were, "Damien, kill them both."

Nathan shrugged at them apologetically, but didn't hesitate. He walked straight over to Dean and leaned down to grab him. Dean waited until he was off-center and then kicked with both tied feet right at Nathan's face. It should have at least stunned him, but, barefoot, the kick was comically ineffective. 

"Ow!" Nathan flipped Dean and kneed him in the back to hold him still. "Do I need to strangle you again?"

"Freeze!" Old Ned shouted like a character in an old cops and robbers movie. When Dean craned his neck around, sure enough, the old man had his revolver out. He held it with both hands this time, a little more respectful of the recoil now, though his hands shook slightly. 

If it had just been him, Dean would have risked another kick. Dean felt pretty good about his odds even with his hands and feet tied. He was in peak shape. There'd been a point after they first moved into the bunker when he'd started to go a bit soft without even noticing. Three square meals a day and the ability to kick back and relax on his own bed whenever he wanted and Dean was practically _domestic_. The Mark of Cain put the fight back in him. The first time that he'd had a chance to catch his breath after all the craziness when he finally lost the Mark, he was frankly startled to realize how trim and athletic he was again. 

Dean felt confident in his ability to kick just about anyone's ass. He'd possibly had a bit more stamina when he was younger, a slight speed advantage back then, but if he ever had to fight an evil twenty-five-year-old version of himself, he would win. No question. He had the strength, the experience, and absolutely no qualms about fighting dirty. (Also, how fucked up was it that that theoretical scenario didn't even sound particularly far-fetched on his list of things he was prepared for?)

Except it wasn't just him. Old Ned was aiming the revolver at Sam's chest, closing in to only about five feet away and even Old Ned wasn't likely to miss at that range. Hell, he'd probably fire off an unintentional headshot with the recoil.

Dean stopped fighting.

Nathan picked Dean up and dragged him out of the door. The house had a wooden veranda that completely wrapped the structure and Nathan pulled him around the corner until he realized they were now passing the same picture window from the outside. He could still see the stone glowing yellow on the table inside, well out of his or Sam's reach. He met Sam's eyes where Sam knelt still bound himself, helpless on the floor in front of Old Ned and his damned revolver.

The veranda stepped down to a lower deck which Dean realized was directly connected to a dock. Nathan was taking him out into the lake.

Old Ned's dock wasn't rickety and time-worn like Crazy Hazel's. _He'd_ had nothing to fear from the water, though certainly it had been Nathan who'd done the actual labor to re-build the new dock. Did Old Ned have to hold the lake monster at bay while Nathan worked? Or did the thing lie peacefully in the depths until the witch summoned it?

The water looked calm and Dean couldn't see any signs of the thing, but Nathan was definitely dragging him out to the end of the dock and that didn't bode well at all. Dean looked back to the house and from this angle there was just enough glare on the big picture window that he couldn't see inside. Could Old Ned still see _him_? Would he panic and shoot Sam if he saw Dean putting up a fight? Maybe if he could just take Nathan down quietly, Old Ned would only see them disappear from his sightline and assume Nathan was dumping him in the lake as ordered.

It no longer mattered whether Old Ned could see them or not. Nathan had him on the edge of the dock and if he didn't do something now, he'd be fighting the lake monster instead and Dean didn't want to find out how that would go. Dean swung his weight to one side and kicked Nathan's legs out from under him. It ended up being less of a kick and more of a tangle of limbs, but it was enough to bring Nathan down onto the dock. Nathan scrambled to get Dean back under control and Dean's only real defence was to wriggle as violently as he could, flopping pathetically like a caught fish, the ropes still holding firm.

A gunshot rang out from the house and echoed across the lake.

"Sammy!"

With a renewed sense of rage, Dean braced his back against the dock and—as Nathan scrambled back on his feet—used the demon's height against him. He shoved him with both legs and Nathan toppled backward into the water. Unfortunately, he grabbed at Dean's legs—maybe still trying to obey Old Ned's orders, maybe just scrabbling for anything to keep his balance—and Dean flipped into the lake along with him.

Suddenly Dean's muscles were to his disadvantage. A little body fat might have given him a touch more much-needed buoyancy. Bound hand and foot, Dean sank before he could even grab another lungful of air. 

He could see Nathan frantically treading water above him. The lake was amazingly clear. He'd never seen a body of water like it. Looking down to the lake bottom made him feel a touch acrophobic, dizzy with the illusion of hanging in mid-air with the land so far below. The thing had obviously consumed every fish, every frog, every bug, every freaking _microbe_ in the lake leaving it unnaturally pristine. Crystal Lake was earning its name and it was surreal to think he was about to die somewhere so beautiful. He could see the thing. Over on the other side of the narrow lake, he could see it floating at the surface. Even from this angle it looked more like a gap in the universe than a physical thing. 

The darkness was moving.

Nathan swam down and grabbed Dean by the back of the shirt. Dean tried to thrash away, but he was running out of air, which didn't leave him a lot of energy to fight. But Nathan only pulled Dean along after him and in the next moment he was approaching the surface and Sam's voice was yelling something indistinct and as Dean broke the surface he heard Nathan yelling back, "I said I _got_ him! Chill already!"

And then it was Sam's hand tugging on his shirt, which only bunched and ripped as Sam tried to use it to haul Dean out of the water. 

Dean didn't waste any time to marvel at his big beautiful brother being alive and in one piece and, as far as he could see, uninjured. He would check every inch of Sammy for injuries _later_. "It's coming! The thing is coming this way! It's fucking fast!"

Sam got his hand under one of Dean's arms, fingers jamming painfully into Dean's armpit and hauled him out of the water. Dean even felt Nathan give a final shove at his thigh as Sam rolled him onto the deck.

Sam then reached past him and gave Nathan a hand out of the water. Nathan flopped face down over Dean's upper thighs. Just as Dean was about to say something very witty about it not being the time for that sort of thing, Nathan suddenly jerked and twisted.

"It's got my foot!" Nathan screamed.

Sam grabbed Nathan's hands and tried to pull him back up. Dean was helpless, still bound, and could do nothing as Sam and the monster played tug-of-war with Nathan's body. Except tug-of-war wasn't a good metaphor. There was no give and take. Nathan seemed _rooted_ to the water as if his foot were embedded in hardened cement. And slowly, achingly slowly, the thing was pulling Nathan back down. Nathan screamed and swore. He lashed out with his other foot, an involuntary reflex to fight back and then that foot was trapped. Trapped or...gone. Blood welled over the top of the black slick, but was absorbed as quickly as it flowed. 

Nathan jerked further back into the water, up to his thighs. He released one of Sam's hand and started clawing at his collar. With the collar on, he couldn't smoke out of his body and his body...yeah, it was kind of a loss at that point. Femoral arteries _gone_ , not just damaged, but _both legs gone_ , he was going to bleed out in minutes even if they freed him from the thing. Still fighting, he was bleeding out even faster. 

Sam still had Nathan's other hand, clutched now in both of his, pulling for all he was worth, but getting nowhere. "Suavium et complexus!" Dean shouted in desperation and, though the stone was nowhere in sight, he saw Sam's pocket flash yellow. Not just yellow, it flickered through the spectrum from yellow to purple before going dark.

The thing stilled, but it was too late for Nathan. He was already looking woozy and with one last spasm, he went limp. Sam let what was left of the body slide back into the water.

Sam scrambled back from the edge of the dock, panting. He slung Dean over his shoulder—which Dean was getting heartily sick of—and carried him back to the house where he cut Dean free of his bonds.

Old Ned was lying dead on the carpet, a gunshot wound to the chest. Dean didn't even bother to ask how Sam got free.

"So I guess you don't even have to be touching the stone to make it work," Dean said, thinking about the stone still being in Sam's pocket and how that meant he probably could have used it in the motel room against Nathan if he'd tried. 

Sam nodded. "We should have thought of that earlier. If you don't have to touch it to charge it, it makes sense that you don't have to be touching it to use it."

The clothes he'd been wearing before in the motel room were mixed in with Sam's things. His own bag was still locked in the trunk of the car, which felt like a million miles away. Dean peeled off his wet clothes, waffled briefly over the merits of dirty clothes that fit or clean clothes that didn't, and decided he wanted to be clean. He pulled on a fresh set of Sam's clothing and put on his own boots, rolling the pant legs up out of the way.

He pointed at Ned's body and grabbed the old man under the arms. Without a word between them, Sam got the body by the feet and they walked him out to the end of the dock. Neither of them even suggested retrieving the dildo from his neck before they rolled him into the water. His corpse, less muscled than Dean or Nathan had been, floated easily for a bit before the thing claimed it.

"What now?" Dean asked. "You think the thing will just go away now that it's not under Ned's control anymore?"

"Maybe," Sam said. "We should probably stick around a little while. Make sure it's still calm after the charm wears off."

Right on fucking cue, the thing slammed into the dock. Black waves actually lapped up over the edges of the wood and no one ever said that the Winchesters were too proud to retreat.

They ran back to the house and regrouped on the veranda about twenty feet from the edge of the water and watched as the thing splashed. It had the entire lake sloshing from the wake. Now that they were out of reach, it seemed to calm down, but it still hugged the shore nearest them, watching and waiting.

"Damn it," Sam said. "That was our strongest charge ever and it only worked for maybe fifteen minutes or so."

Dean pulled out his phone.

"Who are you calling?"

"Hello, Ma'am, this is...uh…" Had he even given Crazy Hazel a name? "...Agent Smith with the EPA. Or not the EPA as the case may be, yes, Ma'am. We're gonna recommend that you don't take your boat out for awhile. Things have...escalated a little. Yeah. We, uh, we kind of made it angry. We can do that, Ma'am. No problem. Thank you. We'll let you know when it's safe. You too, Ma'am."

"We can do what?"

"I just promised her we'd do her shopping if we haven't figured this thing out by Saturday."

"Yeah, that's fair."

Dean took a few steps toward the lake and he wasn't even halfway to the edge when the waves started up again, sloshing terrifyingly close to where he was standing. Dean quickly returned to the veranda.

"Fuck me," Dean said, staring at the lake and the thing in it.

"Yeah, I have no idea what our next move is," Sam said.

"I just told you our next move," Dean said firmly. "We need more power. You need to fuck me."

"Oh."

♥ ♥ ♥


	8. Chapter 8

♥ ♥ ♥ 

First things first. Dean stalked around to the back of the house where the Impala was still tied to Ned's pickup. He removed the tow rope and checked the front end, which actually wasn't nearly as bad as he had feared it might be. From a few paces back, you could barely see the scuffs. The worst damage was where the trailer hitch had scraped over the top of the bumper carving a groove in it. He'd do his best to sand it out in the meantime, but it wouldn't look exactly right until he found a replacement.

When he straightened up, he found Sam standing on the back steps, his bag packed and slung over his shoulder.

"Where the hell are you going?" he asked, sounding a lot gruffer than he'd intended.

Sam looked confused. "I thought… I mean… weren't we going to… back at the motel?"

"I don't think we have time for that, Sam."

"What, you think that thing's going somewhere?"

"We don't know that it's not. Remember what Karen Sheeler said about this lake having more than one creek that feeds into it. Without Ned telling it what to do, what's to stop this thing from finding its way upstream?"

"Okay. Point." Sam shifted nervously. "So. Um."

"And even if we had time, it's a lot of wasted gas for no reason to drive all the way to town and then back out here. We didn't leave anything back at the motel. No reason to go back."

"Dean, I already agreed with you. You're right. We should just do it here."

"Right."

"Right."

_It._

_Fuck._

"Did you want to do it in the _car_?" Sam asked and it wasn't until then that Dean noticed that he'd backed up to the point that he was right up against the side of the car. "Because there's a perfectly good house right there that's now vacant."

Dean scoffed even as he briefly considered the idea. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had sex in the back of the Impala. It wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but it was doable. Of course, he'd never had a partner as big as Sam. Dean could actually _feel_ his face flushing. It usually took a hell of a lot of alcohol to get the feeling that was suddenly burning all the way to the tips of his ears.

"House. Duh. We should both wash up first. I'm a little, uh—" Dean rubbed a hand through his wet hair as if he were illustrating some point. The lake had probably been cleaner than most municipal water so he was probably already about as clean as he was going to get, but he was also tired and sore and a hot shower might go a long way towards making him feel a little more human.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, and then he sort of smirked a little as he glanced Dean up and down, which was unnerving to say the least. "We should wash up _really_ good first."

Sam was plotting something.

Something that involved being _really_ clean. 

Sam had been talking about _eating ass_ earlier.

Which… was probably just talk. They had _both_ said a lot of crap that they would never in a million years follow through on, because that's what you did when you needed a little dirty talk to get you in the mood. There was no way that Sam would actually…

Sam walked back into the house.

Dean called Garth just to check in and see if he'd learned anything about Ned Miller which turned out to not be any more than they'd worked out on their own. He had no ideas at all on how Old Ned had controlled the thing in the lake or what it might do now that it was off its leash. 

Garth then told Dean that he sounded nervous and proceeded to _give him a pep talk_. Nothing in this world could shake a man's confidence more than getting the "I believe in you" speech from Garth Fitzgerald IV.

"Thanks, Garth. Gotta go."

Dean grabbed his own bag with his own clothes from the car and walked in the house. The main room was empty so he wandered back and found a bedroom. It had a nice king size bed, but all he could think was that it was the bed the creepy old witch slept in so he started searching for clean sheets.

"Dean! Check this out!" Sam popped his head out of another doorway. "Old Ned wasn't just an asshole; he was a _rich_ asshole!" Sam was all dimples, so it couldn't be bad. Dean gave up on the hunt for clean sheets and followed Sam.

Sam had found the bathroom. Or possibly a portal to a small village in Sweden. It was hard to tell.

"Jesus."

"I know, right?"

The bathroom was huge and contained a massive tub, a separate shower, and—in addition to the obvious sink and toilet—also housed the linen cupboard that Dean had been looking for.

Sam sat down on a wooden bench—who has a bench in their bathroom?—and started taking his shoes off. "Check. Out. The. Shower."

Dean did so. It was an old man shower in that it had a lot of handholds and a ledge built right into the shower tile that was big enough to sit on. And it was a _rich_ old man shower in that it was incredibly large, with a very promising-looking showerhead with a handheld attachment and multiple settings. Dean turned the water on and then jumped back out of the spray. 

"Impressive."

"Hell, yeah!" 

It wasn't often that Sam got this enthusiastic about the more hedonistic side of life. Dean turned around to the sight of Sam shucking his jeans and underwear and, damn, Sam was just kind of _enthusiastic_ in general.

Dean had been about to call dibs on first shower, but… it didn't look like this was going to be a question of _first_ or last shower. There was just going to be the _shower_ and, okay, fine. That worked. He was fine with that. Okay.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Let's do this."

"O...kay." Sam gave him that damned judgemental look that he had as if Dean had said something weird. Sam stepped into the shower before Dean could demand to know what that look had been about.

Sam adjusted the water and then said, "Oh, can you bring the shampoo with you? I forgot it."

Yeah, that was unambiguous. _With you_. Not _get it for me_ or _bring it to me_. The request had clearly been _bring it with you_. Okay. 

Dean went to Sam's bag on the bench and, though he hadn't watched him re-pack it this time, he knew Sam packed his bag the same way every time. The dirty stuff, including the wet clothes that Dean had peeled off earlier, would be crammed into one compartment, the clean clothes in another, the toiletries and miscellaneous items in a side pocket. The books would be in with the clean clothes. The weapons would be pretty much everywhere, but always on top where they were easiest to reach. Dean found the shower gel and the shampoo and, right alongside it, the lube. 

Should he bring that now? Were they actually going to have sex _in_ the shower? Dean generally wasn't a big fan of shower sex, but if ever a shower had been meant for shower sex, that shower was.

Dean quickly stripped down and then grabbed all the tubes and bottles for the shower, lube included. He stepped into the shower with an armload and Sam had to open and close the shower door for him. Sam smirked as he took the lube from him, but just set it down on a little shelf with everything else, shoving Old Ned's things aside.

As soon as Sam had everything sitting on the shelf and Dean's hands were empty, Sam slipped his arms around Dean and started kissing him and, God, that meant their bare dicks were already bumping against each other. Dean was only at half-mast, too nervous to quite get into it yet, but that still meant his dick was front and center and kind of in the way of Sam's schlong, which was bigger than Dean had remembered from occasional glimpses over the years. 

It's not like Sam was porn-star huge or anything, but Dean had always teased him for being a little lacking in that department. It was probably an optical illusion caused by the Sasquatch being so tall and broad-shouldered, but he'd always _looked_ a little on the small side. Up close, he didn't look that small. He sure as hell didn't _feel_ that small.

"For the love of God, Sammy, tell me you remembered the stone this time," Dean said, grabbing Sam's shoulders only to steady himself.

Sam laughed and picked the stone up off the shelf. It was already glowing purple. He set it back down between the shower gel and the conditioner and kissed Dean again. 

Dean was just warming up to it, getting used to the feel of Sam's body against his, when Sam pulled away and reached for the shampoo.

"Really? Now?"

Sam laughed, but continued to shampoo his hair. "We agreed to get cleaned up first," Sam reminded him. "And _you_ need to make sure you wash _everywhere_."

And there was that lascivious lilt in Sam's voice again. He _totally_ meant something by that.

Dean was hard. Not just getting there, but all the way hard and kind of wishing they'd skipped the shower, because he really wanted to stop worrying about gravity and just lie back in a nice soft bed. 

Dean took a step back and soaped himself up. He tried to fight the dizzy feeling in his head when he realized Sam was watching him, like _watching_ watching him. As long as he had an audience, he might as well put on a show. He rubbed soap over his own nipples and Sam _squeaked_. Honest to God. Squeaked. There was no other word for that sound. Dean was starting to think Sam hadn't just been joking when he made that crack about having a nipple fetish. 

Sam didn't squeak at all when Dean rubbed soap over his balls, but he did make an appreciative _mmm_ sort of sound and began to soap himself up as well. Dean went back to touching his nipples and Sam grunted. Sam's sexually frustrated grunt was officially the hottest thing ever. Also, no question, the kid had a weird thing for nipples which Dean was going to have no problem at all obliging.

Sam rinsed off and seemed about to skip the conditioner. 

"Sammy, what we say in this shower, stays in this shower. Agreed?"

Sam leaned down and kissed him just once, an almost innocent peck on the lips. "Agreed. Anything we say _or do_ together is special. We don't mention it in front of anyone else. We don't bring it up in fights. This is all off limits for teasing."

"I like your hair."

Sam laughed and Dean swatted him on the shoulder hard enough that he knew it stung. 

"I didn't say _anything_!"

Dean leaned down and gently kissed Sam's shoulder where he'd slapped him and Sam made one of his adorable little noises. 

"I want to condition your hair," Dean admitted to Sam, or at least to the side of Sam's neck where he added a kiss in the hopes it would help his case.

He waited for the inevitable comment, but Sam said nothing and Dean finally risked a look at his face. Sam was valiantly trying not to laugh again, his face tense with the effort. Dean waited for Sam to pull himself together. Finally, Sam drew in a shaky breath that threatened to break into another huff of laughter, but instead he said, "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

So Dean smoothed conditioner through Sam's hair until it was slick enough to glide through his fingers. Sam closed his eyes and just let Dean do his thing and, at first, Dean was afraid he'd completely weirded the guy out, but then he noticed the way Sam's dick was twitching. 

A few stray hairs tangled around Dean's fingers and he washed his hands off in the spray of the shower muttering, "Dude, you're shedding like a Wookie. It's gross."

"Your turn," Sam said and he made Dean turn around so that Sam was facing Dean's back, which Dean felt was a disappointing change of circumstances. He let Sam shampoo and condition his hair without actually complaining. Just when he was starting to get bored, Sam slipped a soapy arm around him and started fondling his nipples.

Oh, and that was definitely Sam's dick pressed against his ass.

"You think we can move this into the bedroom?" Dean asked, feeling a little desperate.

"Uh-uh. Not yet."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because we still have some work to do in here." He could _hear_ the smirk in Sam's voice.

"Excuse me?"

Sam gestured toward the tile ledge. "Why don't you have a seat and I'll show you something?"

And that, that sounded like… maybe… 

Sam picked up the soap _and the lube_ and sunk down to the shower floor before Dean even sat down himself. Dean sat and immediately Sam was nudging his thighs up and apart so that Dean's heels were on the edge of the tile bench and Sam was running soapy fingers over his dick. Sam then took him by the hips and pulled him closer so that he was balanced right on the edge. He slipped those soapy fingers under Dean's balls and between his ass cheeks.

"Okay?" Sam asked, which was kind of a ridiculous question with Dean's hard-on just sort of bouncing around practically in Sam's face.

"Yeah. I'm good." The words caught in his throat, so he ended up sounding more nervous than he really was. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm good."

Sam leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of Dean's dick _and then stood up and stepped away_.

"The hell?" Dean nearly said something about Sam being a tease and then it hit him that maybe Sam really _didn't_ want to go through with this and if that was the case… "You don't have to do this if you don't want to. You know that, right? We can call Garth back and have him send someone else out to deal with this."

Sam squinted at him over his shoulder and then pulled down the handheld attachment on the showerhead… which, of course, was what he'd stood up to get in the first place. "Can I at least hose the soap off of you before you have your gay panic?" Sam asked.

"I'm not panicking. I just thought… I just wanted to make sure you're okay with this."

"I'm okay with this," Sam assured him. "Are _you_ okay with this?"

And Dean couldn't answer because Sam was rinsing off his balls and ass, running his finger over his anus, and Dean temporarily lost the ability to breathe.

Sam asked again and all he could do was nod frantically. Dean was so okay with this that there weren't words to explain _how_ okay he was with this even if he _could_ breathe enough to make coherent sounds.

Sam put the shower sprayer down where it ended up running almost straight into the drain. They were wasting so much water, but Dean couldn't bring himself to suggest that Sam take the time to get up and turn the shower off. Sam nudged Dean's legs farther apart. He took Dean's dick in his hand, but rather than do anything else with it, he just held it out of the way and leaned in to kiss Dean's hole. 

Dean raggedly drew in a convulsive breath. Sam was actually doing it. Sam was _licking his asshole_. Sam was _holding Dean's dick in his hand_. Sam was picking the lube up from the shower floor with his other hand. Sam was… Sam...

The lube had this annoying screw-on top which meant you needed two hands to open it so Sam let go of Dean's dick to squeeze out some lube. He rubbed it around Dean's rectum, pressing gently on the opening itself. "Ready?"

"Ready."

Sam slipped a finger inside and, just like the dildo, it went in effortlessly. 

"We need to buy this stuff by the gallon," Dean joked.

"If you think this is supposed to be difficult, you're watching the wrong porn," Sam insisted.

_Whoa, was that two fingers now?_

Sam leaned down and licked at Dean's dick while still sliding his fingers around in his ass.

"Fuck!" Dean moaned. _Fuck_ was really as poetic as he was capable of under the circumstances, so he could only hope Sam understood that that was the spiritual equivalent of a sonnet right there.

Then Sam started _sucking_ on his dick and Dean immediately realized they had a problem if they were trying to come together. Did they need to come together? Castiel hadn't been explicitly clear on _how_ mutual this needed to be and it hadn't occurred to Dean at the time to ask about simultaneous orgasms. 

Sam wasn't even that good at it. With his big mouth, he should have been able to take Dean in deeper than any chick ever had, but he didn't even get close to a record before the first involuntary gag caused him to back off. And Dean didn't even like butt stuff to begin with. It was incomprehensible that the _combination_ of two mediocre sex acts had him quivering on the edge.

"Fuck!" Dean shouted again, mentally shifting through words like _stop_ and _wait_ and then Sam did something else with his fingers and with no time to spare, Dean shouted, "Safeword!"

"We don't have a safeword," Sam said, but he immediately backed off, fingers slipping out of Dean's butt.

"When there's no safeword, the default safeword _is_ safeword."

"Or _no_ or _stop_ ," Sam said, sounding a bit sulky. "You don't have to be so dramatic. All you have to do is tell me to stop. Just let me know it's not working for you and I'll—" 

"You need to work on your self-esteem, Sam. _That_ was working for me. _That_ was working for me so well I was about to come all over your stupid face. I just, I just need a minute to regroup, okay?"

"Oh," Sam said, brightening up. "Sure."

Dean took a series of deep breaths and tried to remember the words to some basic counterspells, the Winchester equivalent to reciting baseball stats.

But Sam was staring at his dick and licking his lips and Dean couldn't remember the words to crap-all. 

"Sam, can we _please_ move to the bed now?"

"Yeah, okay."

Sam stood, turned off the water, and put the handheld shower attachment back in place. But just as Dean was stepping out of the shower, Sam put one foot up on the tile ledge and started going at himself with the lube.

"Dude," Dean said, "what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm getting ready. It'll only take a few seconds. You can wait a few seconds, Dean. Sheesh."

"But, you don't need to do that."

"The hell I don't. I mean, unless you're volunteering to do it for me." Sam managed to leer at Dean in a superior sort of way while still slipping his fingers in and out of his ass and, really, who can still look smug in that position? When Dean didn't respond to the leer, Sam added, "Seriously, dude, _'[There's always time for lubricant](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/b1uemorpho/21390328/9721/9721_original.gif).'_ "

"No, I mean, we agreed that _you_ were going to fuck _me_ ," Dean said.

Sam pulled his fingers out and straightened up and—what the hell had Dean done to deserve the bitch face _this_ time?

"You have a funny definition of 'we agreed', Dean."

"What? Come on. I'm taking one for the team. Let's just get this over with."

" _'Taking one for—'_ Jesus, Dean! If you think this is going to be so awful, maybe we _should_ call Garth and get someone else out here."

"I didn't say anything like that! Quit putting words in my mouth, okay. I want to do this for you."

"For me? _For_ me? Dean, you have died for me, gone to hell for me, killed for me, lied for me, lied _to me_ 'for' me." Sam waved finger quotes in Dean's face. " _Do not_ add _this_ to your list of things that you have done _for me_. We do this because we _want_ to do this or we don't do this at all."

Sam stalked across the large room and started washing lube off his hands in the sink, which was a waste of effort since he could have just done it there in the shower. He obviously just wanted to put some space between them.

Dean stood there reeling. How the hell had they gone from the brink of orgasm to arguing in five seconds?

"I _want_ to do this. Did I not _just_ say that I want to do this—" Dean had to bite off the _for you_ , but Sam didn't let it go.

"And while we're on the subject of things you can do for me," Sam said, whirling on him angrily, and, crap, the dude wasn't even hard anymore. Dean could feel himself shrivel in response. "You can _not_ insult me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. You know your face isn't stupid. You're fucking gorgeous."

"I'm not talking about my face, Dean. I'm talking about _me_. Who I _am_. When you mock things that I _enjoy_ doing, you are mocking _me_. When you criticize things you _know_ that I _like_ , how am I not supposed to feel insulted? Huh?"

"Oh, my God, can we just accept that I'm an idiot who makes poor word choices and move on already?! I love you! I love you more than any human being on this planet who ever existed or ever will exist and feel free to toss in a thousand alternate universes because that's how much I love you! I want to do this _for_ you because I'm not _ready_ to do it _to_ you. I'm scared that I'll hurt you."

Sam glanced down at Dean's dick—now all tiny and floppy—and rolled his eyes, but Dean refused to be derailed.

"Because I've never done this before," Dean explained. "Because _I_ won't enjoy it if I'm worried that I might be doing something wrong. Please. I want you to show me how you like it and next time I'll pitch and you catch. I promise. Just, this first time, please. The most experienced driver in the driver seat, yeah?"

Sam's face softened slightly and he nodded, but he took an armload of towels and walked out of the room without saying anything. Dean went to grab the lube and then realized they'd damn near forgotten the stone again. It was glowing sort of blue-green and Dean could have sworn it had been more green than that before they'd started arguing.

In the bedroom, Dean found Sam spreading towels out on top of the bedspread. Sam had apparently had the same thoughts regarding old witch cooties, but hadn't felt like putting the effort into re-making the bed.

Dean tossed the stone and the lube onto the side of the bed.

"Wasn't that green in the shower?" Sam asked.

"I don't know," Dean lied. "I wasn't paying attention."

Sam centered himself on one of the big towels and started pulling at his dick. "Just give me a moment, okay? I need to get back up to speed."

He alternated between pulling on his dick and rolling his balls around, but he didn't really seem to be getting anywhere. When the tugs started getting rougher, Dean interrupted, "Dude, don't injure yourself. Here." He batted Sam's hands out of the way and lay down between Sam's legs. If he hesitated, it would make it worse, so he just dove right in, licking his way from Sam's root to his tip.

Sam sighed in an unreadable way. Dean tried to imagine it was encouraging, though Sam's dick didn't seem to be getting any harder.

"Dean, can I ask you a personal question without you getting mad at me?"

 _Probably not._ "I suppose that depends on the question," Dean said between licks.

"And I want an honest answer or no answer at all. If you don't want to tell me, it's okay, but don't lie to me."

 _This is going to be bad,_ Dean thought and sucked at the head of Sam's penis without responding.

"Have you done this before? Given a guy a blowjob?"

Dean thought about just continuing to suck without answering, but that was sort of an answer too. He let Sam's dick slip out of his mouth and there was an audible slurping sound. 

"Sober?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what I figured," Sam said without asking for clarification.

Dean looked up towards Sam face, trying to gage his reaction, but Sam was looking to the side, watching the stone, which was still just blue. Dean moved up the bed and tucked the stone out of sight under the corner of a towel.

"You don't need to look at the stone to see if it's working. We've already figured out how this works. We take care of each other and the stone will take care of itself. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Sam said, turning his head back to stare at the ceiling, which really wasn't much of an improvement.

Dean decided to switch tactics and latched his mouth onto one of Sam's nipples and _that_ finally got a reaction. Sam rested his hand gently on Dean's head, murmuring encouraging noises. And when Dean reached down to get a hold of Sam's dick, it was already starting to thicken again. God, he was never going to be able to look at Sam shirtless the same way again, knowing how easy it was to get a reaction like this out of him.

Dean moved his mouth up to kiss Sam on the lips and Sam actually whimpered at the loss of contact. He kissed back enthusiastically and his body writhed, pressing their torsos together from chest to dick. Yet the moment Dean came up for air, Sam was pressing on his shoulders trying to maneuver him downward.

Dean stubbornly stayed right where he was—because messing with Sam was something of a hobby—and peppered his lips with kisses. The writhing, as well as the whining, escalated until Sam finally begged, "Dean, please. Please, Dean. The other one."

Dean tried not to laugh and got slapped on the shoulder when he failed, but he obediently took Sam's other nipple in his mouth and just suckled at it like there was an actual point to this. Sam's happy noises were totally worth it though, as was the lovely boner. 

"Dean," Sam squeaked. From moose to mouse. This was awesome. Kind of unfair that they'd declared this a no-teasing arena, because Dean could get some mileage out of this. "Are you ready? Because I'm really, really ready."

"Uh, yeah." Yet Dean was suddenly feeling kind of unready. Horny, yes. Ready, no. "Just, um." He didn't even know what to say. Or do. Wow, this was it, wasn't it?

Sam met his eyes and brushed his fingers over Dean's cheek, which should have been all kind of irritating, because Dean did not need to be coddled like that, but it was actually kind of nice. "Let's get you ready," Sam whispered and Dean's dick twitched at the thought of what was coming next.

Sam sat up and grabbed the lube while motioning for Dean to lie on his back. "Tuck your knees and spread," he instructed and, shit, the head of Dean's dick was wet with pre-come just getting into position, Sam looming over him.

Sam smeared lube over Dean's rectum and with the brief announcement of, "Fingers going in," pressed inside.

One finger. Two. Silky smooth with the lube. And maybe this had never really done much for Dean before, but knowing it was _Sam_ 's fingers inside him, knowing it was turning Sam on, knowing that Sam was getting him ready for his _dick_ to be inside him… _that_ was so hot, Dean didn't think he could take much more.

He experimented clenching and releasing and Sam experimented twisted and spreading his fingers. "Let's get the show on the road, man," Dean said. "I don't think I can get more ready than this."

"Almost," Sam said. He pulled his fingers out, then shifted down and, in the next moment, Sam's tongue was licking at the back door. 

"Sam, that is like _unclean_ , man."

"I just washed you," Sam insisted. " _And_ I like it."

 _Right, right. Don't make fun of things that Sam likes. Got it. Holy Mother of—!_ Sam's tongue was inside him. _Inside_. Wriggling around and probing and _fuck_! Dean was gonna die. This was it. He was going to die and, be it Bobby or Crowley—he figured his destiny was kind of a coin toss at this point—Dean was going to have to explain to _someone_ in the afterlife that his heart had just exploded because his brother put his tongue up his ass and it was _just that fucking awesome_.

"You're killing me, Sammy. We've got to do this now. I can't last much longer."

The Neanderthal _picked him up_ and flipped him over. Being manhandled by Sam was way more of a turn-on than it should have been, but Dean wasn't thrilled with the resulting face-down position. Sam was just lining up, lubed dick nudging at Dean's ass when Dean found the voice to protest.

"Not like that. That's not how I want it."

"Not like _what_?" Sam asked, a familiar indignant whine edging into his voice.

"I want it face to face."

"Trust me. It'll be better this way," Sam insisted, though he stopped poking at Dean's ass and slipped underneath rubbing his dick under Dean's balls instead, which was utterly amazing all by itself. "I'll have a better angle on your prostate. It'll be really hot."

"I want it face to face," Dean insisted, sliding his balls back and forth over Sam's dick thus taking a little bit of the force out of his argument. "I want to see your face. I need to know it's you."

"There's no one else here. Of course it's me."

"I want to see your face when you come. I want to hold you. I want to wrap myself around you and hold you and kiss you and watch your face when you come. I need to see your face when you come. Please, Sammy." 

And, at no point during his barely-coherent rambling, could he make himself stop rubbing against Sam's dick so Sam would have been absolutely right to call him an idiot and keep going. However, Sam _flipped him_ back over—and, God, Sam was strong, so beautifully strong—and climbed on top of him, shoving his tongue—his gross, ass-covered tongue—in Dean's mouth. He would need so much mouthwash when he came back to his senses, but in the meantime, fuck it. He was going to enjoy every nasty moment. 

Dean wrapped his legs around Sam's hips and luxuriated in the slow grind of their bodies or at least he tried to. Sam took it as an invitation to start slamming their groins together. 

"Chill, dude. This isn't a porno. Slow it down a little."

Sam ignored him and _bit his neck_ , not viciously hard, but hard enough to potentially leave a mark, and the way he was sucking at the bite was _definitely_ going to leave a mark.

"No hickeys above the collar line," Dean insisted.

Sam pulled away just far enough to stare at him incredulously. "Have you not seen a mirror? And have you perhaps forgotten the part where a demon strangled you unconscious?" He ran a finger higher up Dean's neck, making him hiss as Sam's fingers pressed into bruised flesh. "Trust me, _hickeys_ are the least of your problems. Your neck looks like a horror show."

"Fabulous. But slow it down anyway."

"Oh, come on, Dean. How much more foreplay do you need?"

"I don't need _any_ more foreplay. I'm ready for the main event. I just like my main event slow and easy."

"You're kidding me?"

"Bottom picks the tempo," Dean insisted.

"Top shuts his cakehole," Sam grumbled. "Got it."

Dean ran his hands over Sam's chest, which quieted him right down. Sam kissed him, sloppy and drooly and making positively disgusting smacking sounds. And then he sat back and lined himself back up.

"Okay," Sam said. "Nice and slow. Ready this time?"

"Ready."

With a steady press, Sam's dick slid up inside him.

"Whoa."

Sam froze.

"Dude, move."

Sam pulled out. "Are you okay?"

"Why did you stop?!"

"You said to stop."

"The hell I did! At no point did I say anything remotely close to 'stop'."

"You said 'whoa.'"

"Not _stop_ 'whoa'. _Wow_ 'whoa'."

Sam sat up on his heels and pointed an angry finger at him. " _You_ need to communicate better! I am not a mind reader. At _no point_ has mind-reading ever been one of my super powers. How am I supposed to know when your 'whoa' means stop and when it means wow—wait, _wow_ , really?" Sam's face flashed instantly from sullen to smug. Bastard.

"Just put it back in!"

Sam giggled, the little shit. He paused to squeeze more lube on his dick first.

"Dude, we have more than enough lube already."

"There's no such thing as too much lube."

"I'm pretty sure there is," Dean insisted. "A little friction is a good thing."

"Not dry skin friction. Not up your ass. We use all the lube we can get up there and then we adjust the friction with pressure and speed." Sam curled his fingers in the universal dick-grip when he said _pressure_ so Dean figured that part was his job.

"Yeah, but the speed is _slow_. We've established that."

"Well, to _start_ , but…"

" _Slow._ "

"How can you even get off like that?"

"Nobody's getting off if you don't put it back in!"

Sam rolled his eyes, but shifted forward and slid back home. Yeah, home. This was Sammy's home. This was where he belonged. He just needed to fucking live right there. Just plug himself in every night. Fuck, yeah. Dean wrapped himself around his brother and pulled him into an embrace.

Sam licked Dean's neck in exaggerated glacial slowness just to be a jerk, but the joke was on him because, yes, as a matter of fact, that was how Dean liked it.

"Okay?" Sam huffed into his ear and damned if the brat didn't sound grumpy.

"Not just okay, baby. Fucking awesome."

Sam snorted into his neck. Dean felt spittle. Or something. "Dude, did you get snot on my neck?"

"God, you're such a princess." Sam grabbed one of the towels and wiped off Dean's neck. "Better?"

"Thank you."

They rocked silently for a few moments. In and out like the tide. Dean was just dizzy with it. Sam's hips kept stuttering just a little too fast, but Dean quickly figured out how to steer Sam back on course by clenching and relaxing at the _correct_ tempo and then rewarding Sam with a whispered mantra of "good boy" whenever he did it right.

Sam's whimpering shifted from simmering hot moans to annoying puppy whines. "Please, sweetheart," Sam begged. "Please."

 _Sweetheart_? That didn't even sound sarcastic.

"Almost there, baby. Almost there."

"Stop calling me 'baby'," Sam whined.

"You just called me 'sweetheart'."

"That's different."

"How is that different?"

"You call the car 'baby'. It makes this weird."

" _That's_ what makes this weird for you? Really? _That's_ the thing that makes this weird?"

Sam burst out laughing. Not merely giggling or snickering. Laughing. Full-out _hooting_ belly laughs wracked his body and Dean was suddenly laughing too because this was the funniest shit that had ever happened to them. They were fucking on a dead witch's bed with some vague plan to make friends with a lake monster and Sam didn't want to be called 'baby' because it reminded him of the car and _that_ made it weird. Dean could barely breathe and he still couldn't stop laughing. 

Sam was shrieking with laughter now, only maybe a little more than just laughter because… was that spunk? His ass felt just that little bit… _squelchier_ than before and Sam was slowing to a stop, still laughing. 

Sam sat up between Dean's legs without pulling out. He grabbed Dean's dick and started pumping it with his hand and Dean was finally ready for some full-out action so he didn't argue about the pace. Not that he could have gotten any words out right then because he still _couldn't stop laughing_.

He spurted semen all over Sam's hand as Sam hollered some nonsense like, "Atta boy!" at him.

Sam pulled out with a wet fart noise and Dean could feel spunk bubbling out of his butt, which only sparked another round of laughter from both of them.

Sam ruffled Dean's hair and cooed in his ear, "My little creampie."

"I hate you," Dean said, shuffling off the bed awkwardly, trying desperately to keep his ass clenched, but there was just too much damn lube and semen.

"Liar!" Sam called after him as he race-waddled to the bathroom.

♥ ♥ ♥


	9. Chapter 9

♥ ♥ ♥ 

Sam at least had the decency to wait until Dean flushed the toilet before he came bounding into the bathroom.

He went straight for the shower even though Dean was the one who needed it. "You should see the stone," Sam said, raising his voice above the sound of running water. "It's all red and gnarly."

"Gnarly?" Dean repeated, wondering when Sam had become a surfer dude.

"Veins on top of veins. It's kind of gross looking. It's hard to describe, but I'm pretty sure we've hit max charge."

"Dude, why are you showering? You _just showered_. I'm the one who needs a shower. I'm all...moist."

"So get in here already," Sam said, laughing. 

The stone was in the other room. Sam had pretty much just announced that the stone was in the other room. He hadn't forgotten it. He just hadn't bothered to bring it with him. Since it was presumably at max charge, it didn't matter anyway.

And, yet, Sam was still inviting Dean to join him.

Dean felt like he was sleepwalking as he stepped into the shower.

Sam was peeing in the drain. "Dude, that's nasty!"

"What? It all ends up in the same pipes anyway."

"There's a toilet like _right_ over there."

"Too late. I'm done."

"Oh, my god, were you raised by wolves?"

"Worse. Winchesters."

_True._

Dean slapped Sam on the ass anyway.

Sam yelped, half in surprise, half with laughter.

"Outta the way," Dean insisted. "I need to wash my butt off."

Sam obligingly shifted and let Dean take first position in front of the showerhead, but then he hooked his arms around Dean and took the liberty of spreading Dean's ass cheeks to the spray of water. Dean couldn't really think of anything to say to that, so it was just as well that he had a mouthful of Sam at that point anyway. Sam slipped his tongue in and out of Dean's mouth at roughly the same speed that he was slipping his hand up and down Dean's ass crack. 

Dean came up for air, nearly panting for breath. He felt dizzy and let himself sag a little, resting his head on Sam's shoulder and let Sam do all the work of cleaning him up. And that's all it was, right? The sex was over. This was just _cleanup_ … that felt a bit like fondling… with some bonus kissing. But mainly it was just cleanup.

"So it was okay?" Sam asked, sounding oddly serious in counterpoint to all the recent laughter.

"More than. So much more than. In all seriousness, if you could get it up again, I think I'd let you have another go. That was… really kind of beautiful." Dean had no idea how those words came out of his mouth. God, he hoped this still counted as the no-teasing zone. He was going to deny the hell out of this conversation later.

"Oh, if only I could. I'm spent, man." Sam continued to hold Dean in a loose hug even after he'd stopped washing his butt and Dean couldn't imagine letting go either.

" _Tina_ got a twofer," Dean said, instantly regretting the petulant tone in his voice.

"That was different."

"How?"

"Dude, you wore me out. Don't be greedy. Be proud."

"I'm _not_ needy."

"I said _greedy_. Guilty conscience much?"

"Shut up," Dean mumbled, kissing Sam's neck because… because he could.

Sam laughed again and then pulled Dean into another open-mouthed kiss. When he was done he announced, "I don't know about you, but I feel _high_."

"Yeah." Dean was hugging Sam like he was afraid he'd float away if he let go. "Yeah, I'm feeling a little loopy myself."

"Oxytocin," Sam said.

"Gesundheit," Dean said, figuring it was just as easy to annoy the kid into an explanation as to ask for one.

"Oxytocin. It's a hormone in the brain associated with orgasm and… emotional connections."

Dean might be an idiot sometimes, but he could read between the lines on that one. "I love you too, Sammy."

He could have happily stayed in that shower for the rest of his life. The hug was almost better than the sex and if the price of prolonging it was staying wet and wrinkly forever, he was fine with that.

But Sam had to go and run his hands up and down Dean's sides and then he got too far up under Dean's left arm.

"Ow!"

Sam made Dean raise his arm so he could look for the source of the pain and made clucking noises when he found the injury.

"That's a nasty bruise. How'd that happen?"

"That was _you_. Out on the docks, when you pulled me out of the water."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize. You saved my life with that maneuver. Me walking away with a bruise, that's a win. A second longer and that thing would have had me."

"Speaking of…"

"Yeah, we should…"

"Yeah."

_Damn._

Sam reached around him and turned off the water. 

The shower was over. The hug was over. It was time to go deal with the monster.

♥ ♥ ♥

Sam had this book. Dean wasn't sure if he'd found it at the bunker or if it was something he'd picked up somewhere else along the way. It was a useful sort of general spell book. Sort of like a basic Betty Crocker cookbook, if Betty Crocker had been less into baking soda and more into newts. It used to be tagged with dozens of Post-It notes to mark the more frequently used passages and Sam used to keep it in his bag with a few other choice tomes. 

The Post-It notes had all come unstuck and fallen out and Sam now kept it double-bagged inside two quart-size Ziploc bags and stored in the Impala's trunk, all due to the lingering smell of gasoline. (Dean was going to see about buying Sam a scanner for Christmas. The library was a fire hazard these days, but Sam couldn't be induced to part with even the stinkiest books.)

The careful bookmarks had been replaced with dog-eared pages and the occasional marginalia. 

The law of averages said that somewhere in the world there was a mildly-clairvoyant librarian who had nightmares about the Winchesters five or six times a year.

Sam went and got the book out of the trunk while Dean… Dean mainly stared in the bathroom mirror and very resolutely did not have a mental breakdown. They were the good guys. They were doing good things. This thing had killed at least four people, a dog, and a demon. And those were just the victims they knew about. It was an evil monster. It had to be stopped. It just so happened that their best chance of stopping it had involved nudity and an exchange of bodily fluids. 

The bodily fluids probably weren't strictly necessary. Almost certainly not necessary at all. Yet it hadn't even occurred to him to ask Sam to use a condom until _after_ he had a butt full of Sam juice leaking every which way.

The door slammed and Sam called out, "Ready?"

Dean was dressed in his own clothes again. He couldn't think of a single weapon that would be useful against the thing, but he grabbed a silver knife and a flask of holy water with the theory that they couldn't make it worse. That was about as ready as he imagined he could get.

He walked out to the living room intending to announce that he was ready, but he kind of just went stupid for a moment at the sight of Sam. Sam was just plain old ordinary Sam with wet hair and a faded flannel shirt and his dumb nose stuck in a book—a book that Dean could smell the stink of all the way from over here. Sam was also the most beautiful human being in the world. He ached to just grab him and hug him and whisper girly endearments at him.

And he was going to _have_ that again. The lake monster wasn't the last thing tough enough to require a full charge from the stone. Heck, they'd come here specifically because Sam and Garth had decided it was only a low-level threat that they could test the stone on before trying it on anything authentically bad-ass. And from here on, any time they needed to face anything hostile, he was practically guaranteed a mouthful of Sam, a few precious seconds of Sam in his arms. And, sometimes, yeah, they'd need to go that extra mile. And that wasn't _wrong_. That was _fucking fantastic_. Or maybe wrong _and_ fantastic, but Dean was kind of looking forward to a little trouble now. _Ghosts and ghouls and wendigos? Bring it on!_

Sam glanced up from his book and smiled at Dean and Dean said, "Hi," like he was trying to talk to a girl at a damned junior high school dance, except that example sucked because Dean had been much smoother at this in junior high.

"Check this out," Sam said and pulled the stone from his pocket. At least Dean assumed it was the stone. It was glowing and about the right size and there was only one glowing thing that Sam had been carrying around recently, but…

"That's...disgusting."

"Well, now we know why so many of its names included 'heart'."

The stone was blood red. It had bulged outward, veins building on veins. It almost looked inflated, but when Dean reached out and touched it, it was still solid. It looked exactly like a human heart… if human hearts were the size of your average strawberry and, y'know, rock hard.

"Sam, can I ask you a question?" And before Sam could answer and before Dean's own brain could make better choices, Dean continued. "Do you normally use a condom? I mean, with Tina, you _said_ you had a condom, which implies you're in the habit of using condoms."

"Yeah, Tina and I used condoms. I always use a condom."

"Well, clearly you don't _always_ though, do you?" Dean thumbed over his shoulder at the bedroom as if that reality had been left behind in another room.

"What? It's not like there's any way I could get you pregnant."

"First of all, don't even joke about that. Fertility goddesses take shit like that as a challenge. Secondly, how do I know you didn't just give me some gross disease? I'm not worried about fatal crap," Dean clarified. "You die. I die. Fine. We've always been a package deal. But what if you gave me something itchy?"

" _Not worried about any fatal crap_?" Sam repeated and then just shook his head like he wasn't even going to deal with it. "I don't have any gross diseases. I promise."

"Yeah, but if you don't _always_ -always use a condom, how do you know that?"

"When I first got serious with Amelia, I had a full checkup. I'm clean."

"So you admit that you thought you _might_ have had something gross and itchy?"

"Dean, I used to drink demon blood and then I wandered around without a soul for a year banging prostitutes. _Of course_ I was worried I might have picked up something contagious. That's why I did the responsible thing and got myself checked out. I'm good. And I swear, there has been zero unprotected sex since then."

"Except…"

"Yeah, except for that."

"Why?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. We share food all the time. Don't pretend you've never used my toothbrush. I mean, I guess it just didn't occur to me that we shouldn't… Are _you_ clean?" Sam suddenly looked worried.

"Yeah. Probably. I mean death is like a re-set button, right? And I mean, can demons even get STDs?"

"Sweet Jesus, Dean, we are taking you to a clinic the _minute_ we are done here."

Dean shrugged. That was probably fair.

"Okay, yeah, so let's do this."

Sam was scowling at him and started scratching, but he nodded anyway. "You take the stone. I've got the book. Let's go."

They walked out onto the end of the dock, the lake calm and eerily quiet. 

"Where is it?" Sam asked.

Dean's eye first went to the shadows under the dock, but they were normal non-homicidal shadows. Then he looked out into the lake and spotted a darkness in the center away from the treeline in what should have been the brightest part of the lake. "There."

"Oh. Okay."

They stood and stared at it for awhile.

Finally Sam said, "Well, at least it's not trying to escape upstream."

Dean held the stone out at arm's length as if the extra few feet would help and shouted, "Suavium et complexus!" The stone seemed to flicker, but it stayed red and glowing and heart-shaped. Dean glanced sideways at Sam. "I pronounced that right?" Sam nodded, but Dean tried shouting, "Kiss and hug!" just to be sure, but it had the same lack of results.

"I think you're out of range," Sam said.

"Okay, you try yours."

Sam found his page and read off a combination binding and banishing spell that he'd figured was a good bet, although it hadn't been field tested on lake monsters. For a change, it was in Greek instead of Latin, which meant Dean understood even less of it. The thing didn't react at all and Sam finally faded out into a halfhearted mumble and then asked, "Can it even hear me that far out?"

"It doesn't have ears. I'm not sure it could hear you if it was right here. How would a lake monster hear anyway?"

"Sound is vibration. It could use its whole surface to interpret the frequencies. It could hear better than we can actually."

Dean just glared at him and pocketed the stone.

"Why do you even ask these questions if the answers just irritate you?" Sam snapped.

Dean knelt down on the end of the dock and rolled up his left sleeve.

"Dean, don't."

Dean ignored him and—holding his silver knife in his right hand, just in case it might help—leaned over and swished his left hand back and forth in the lake. 'Here, monster, monster, monster. Tasty human flesh. Come and get it."

"It's not moving," Sam said.

Dean shook the water off of his hand and stood up. "Okay, so I guess we go to it then."

"We what?"

Dean pointed at a small aluminum jon-boat that was tied up against the dock closer to the shore. "Crazy Hazel is like seven hundred years old and _she_ had the balls to go after it."

"I think that would be an example of why the locals call her _Crazy_ Hazel."

"So, you're admitting the old lady has bigger cojones than you?"

"You've _seen_ my cojones, Dean, what did you think of them?"

"Dude! We agreed we were not talking about that!"

"In front of people! There's no one else here! Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Did I embarrass you in front of the lake monster?"

"Get in the damn boat," Dean grumbled as he climbed into the boat himself. 

Sam nearly capsized them just getting his giant legs folded up in the small boat. Dean waited until Sam was settled before he untied them from the dock. 

When he didn't get the outboard started on the first try, Sam offered, "Do you want me to try?"

"No!"

The outboard kicked in on the third pull and they were off. The boat lurched a little more than he'd expected, but it wasn't that hard to steer.

Sam found some life vests under the seat and scrambled to get his on. "We're gonna drown in a lake in Pennsylvania. This is how we die."

"That thing'll eat us long before we drown," Dean scoffed. "There's no point to a life jacket."

"Put it on!" Sam insisted, shoving the life vest at him.

"No!"

"Dean Winchester, you put that life jacket on right now or—" Sam sputtered, seemingly at a loss as to how to end his threat.

"Or _what_ , tough guy?"

"Or I will never give you another blowjob again!"

Dean killed the motor and put on the life vest.

Even with the motor off, the boat's momentum kept them gliding closer to the darkness on the water. Dean handed the holy water to Sam and unsheathed his knife again.

"You know holy water is more of Roman thing, right?" Sam asked. "This spell is a pre-Christian—"

"Whatever works."

"It's just that mixing magic isn't always effective."

" _Whatever_."

When they got close enough, Sam sprinkled holy water at it. 

"I think it's working," Dean said, a bit surprised. It wasn't having a dramatic effect. No hissing or burning. But the thing sort of selectively moved out of the way, looking like black swiss cheese in the area where the holy water droplets had splashed. Then the thing surged forward and completely surrounded their boat. "Or not."

Dean slashed down with his silver knife and the thing parted as if cut. "Ha! Bastard doesn't like silver." He made several more slashes, but each time the darkness reformed in seconds.

"Dude, you're stabbing _water_. All you're doing is pissing it off."

"Get on with it!" But it was kind of true. The thing was creeping up the side of the boat, actually rising out of the water now.

Sam began repeating the spell from the book and a black wave made the entire boat lurch in the air. Dean discarded the knife and pulled the stone out of his pocket. "Kiss and hug!"

The stone flashed red just as another wave hit. The world spun and Dean had only enough time for two things before the world went black. One was to suck in a quick lungful of air and two was to see the stone flash through the full rainbow. 

Dean was completely submerged, but there was no beautiful crystal clear water this time. He was enveloped in darkness. He couldn't see. He couldn't move. It burned like acid. And worst of all, it _talked_ to him. Was it making sounds? Was it just in his head? 

_I love you._

_No one else really loves you._

_He doesn't love you._

_He'd be better off without you._

_You ruin everything you touch._

_No one could ever love you._

_No one._

_Only I, the—_

_What have you done? No!_

_What have—_

Dean popped to the surface. The life vest jammed painfully into his bruised armpit, but it did its job.

"Sam!"

"Dean!"

Sam quickly splashed his way to Dean's side.

There was no sign of the lake monster. There was also no sign of the stone.

"I lost it!"

"Dean, are you okay?"

"Do you have it?" Dean asked desperately. 

"What?"

"The stone. It got knocked out of my hand when we flipped over. I dropped it. Fuck! I really do ruin everything."

"What? No! You heard that?" Sam asked. "You heard it talking to me?"

"You? No, it was talking to _me_. It said—"

"—that no one could ever love me because I ruin everything," Sam finished. 

"Shit."

"The lake monster was a fucking liar," Sam said. "I love the hell out of you!"

Dean tried to dive under the water, hoping to catch a glimpse of the stone. The life vest kept him at the surface, but it didn't matter. The bottom was too deep to swim to, even if he could ever spot a single, boring, flat, gray stone on the lake bed.

"Dean, are you _okay_?" Sam repeated. "It, it felt like it was _burning_."

"Did it hurt you?" Dean asked, his priorities suddenly snapping back into place. "Are you okay?"

"No, I mean, yes, it hurt, but I don't think I'm actually injured. I'm okay. You?"

"Bruised. Water logged. _Again_. That's it."

"Add cold to that list," Sam laughed weakly. 

Dean was already shivering himself. He looked back at the dock far in the distance. Fuck, the lake hadn't looked that big at all from the dock. Even with the life vests, that wasn't going to be a fun swim. The boat was completely gone. Probably down there on the bottom with the stone. 

But the lake monster was gone as well.

"So, the banishing spell worked at least, I guess."

"No. I barely even started it. I hadn't even finished the initial binding part of the spell. I think it was the stone."

"But… we didn't turn it friendly—well, maybe 'friendly' in the scary, _why-are-you-friend-zoning-me_ kind of way for a few seconds. We made it _disappear_. The stone doesn't make things disappear."

"Dean, I don't think that you _dropped_ the stone. I think, I think that thing _ate_ it."

Dean just allowed himself to bob there in the lake while he tried to process that. "I thought we agreed the thing only eats people and animals. It spit back out the motor and didn't damage the car at all."

"The stone wasn't exactly your run-of-the-mill inanimate object though. Castiel said it was 'pure positive energy' and if that thing really was primordial evil then… I think they kind of canceled each other out."

Sam held his fists out of the water, knocked them together, and then mimed an explosion.

The sound of an outboard motor interrupted Dean's thoughts on the matter. They both waved frantically, but it was unnecessary because Crazy Hazel was already headed straight for them. She brought her boat up well short and hollered. "You boys all right?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Good to hear. I'm gonna get you back to shore, but first I'm going to explain how we'll be doing this. Either one of you boys gets a mind to capsize _my_ boat, I'm gonna whup you upside the head with this here paddle." She waved an oar in the air to make her point. "Understood?"

"Understood, Ma'am."

"You," she pointed the paddle at Sam, "will grab hold of this side of the boat, but you _won't_ try to climb in. A boat this size won't take that kind of tilt. And _you_ will grab hold of the other side _without_ trying to climb in. Then I'll take us back to the dock, nice and slow and no one drowns and no one sinks my boat. Agreed?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And if either of you try to climb into the boat, I'm going to do what?"

"Whup us upside the head with that there paddle," they both repeated.

Hazel nodded and waved them forward.

♥ ♥ ♥

Crazy Hazel took them back to her own creaky dock where they staggered out onto the shore while she tied the boat up. Then she made them coffee while she ran their clothes through the laundry. Thus they ended up sitting out on her back porch in a fluffy orange robe (Dean) and a striped green muumuu (Sam) drinking coffee and drying their boots off with a hairdryer.

"So that cute fella was a demon?" 

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Huh. Always thought it was odd he never seemed to look any older, but I always figured it was that botox stuff they talk about."

"No, Ma'am. He was an actual minion of hell."

"Wasn't half as rude as some people I know," Hazel said with a shrug. "So, Cecil ate the demon and then you shot Old Ned and dumped his body in the lake for Cecil to finish off?"

Sam and Dean both paused, coffee cups halfway to their mouths, and exchanged a worried look. They had not mentioned that detail. As a general rule, they did not repeat the parts of their stories that were most likely to get them arrested and charged with murder.

"Oh, sound carries out on the water," Hazel said, when she noticed their confused expression. "You live on a lake you get to know everybody's business. Back in the day, I could sit out here and have my very own reality TV show. Though I suppose it was more radio than TV. Still, you'd know exactly which kids were grounded for smoking, which couples were fighting about money, who had to be threatened with a lack of oral sex before he'd put on a life jacket."

Hazel winked at him. Old bitch didn't even try to be subtle. Sam started giggling.

"I heard a gunshot, heard a lot of splashing and yelling, and then you call up telling me to stay away from the water because you'd 'made it angry'. I'm not dumb. I could put it together. You shot him."

"Technically _Sam_ shot him."

"It was my turn," the idiot quipped. God, no wonder people thought they were psychopaths.

"And it was self-defense," Dean added. "It's just a little hard to explain witchcraft to a jury so…"

"Understood. Mum's the word. What I don't understand is why you're not both bloody lumps if that thing had you both."

"We _had_ ," Dean put a bitter emphasis on the past tense, "an artifact that neutralized it almost instantly. It felt like forever, but we likely weren't under for more than a few seconds."

"I thought we'd come out with nasty burns," Sam echoed, "but I just feel... _exfoliated_." He reached over and rubbed his hand over the side of Dean's face. "So smooth."

Dean knocked his hand away. "Dude, what did we _just_ talk about? Not in front of people."

Hazel snickered. "I'll let Karen Sheeler know the good people at the EPA have taken care of the 'pollution'. May take a few years to convince people it's safe again."

"You could even re-stock the lake with fish," Sam suggested.

"Aw, damn, I guess the mosquitoes are going to come back, too."

" _You're welcome!_ " Dean said.

♥ ♥ ♥


	10. Chapter 10

♥ ♥ ♥ 

After their things were dry, Dean declined Hazel's offer of a ride in her boat and insisted that they could walk back to the car. It would have been only about five minutes by boat and they were now looking at a twenty-minute hike around the irregular shoreline, but Dean had had more than enough water for one day. Sam narrowed his eyes at him when he announced they'd rather walk, but didn't protest.

Anger turned out to be a good motivator and even stomping over uneven ground, Dean got back to the car faster than expected. Despite his long legs, Sam dawdled and that left Dean pacing at the car waiting for him to catch up.

"What were you doing? Picking buttercups?" Dean snarled when Sam finally deigned to show up. He immediately regretted the tone. He knew what he was mad about and it wasn't Sam's fault that the stone was gone.

"I wasn't aware it was a race."

Dean waved at the house, "Whatever. Just pack your bag and let's go."

"Why? What's the hurry?"

"I've had a really long day and my bed is seventeen hours _that_ way. Let's go."

"You want to leave this late in the day and do a straight haul back to the bunker?"

"Fine. We can stop for the night in Indiana, maybe Illinois, but let's go."

"Why?!" Sam actually whined. "We can leave in the morning. That tub has _jets_ in it!"

"This isn't our house, Sam. In case you've forgotten, you killed the man who owned this house. We've only got Hazel's word that she won't mention that fact to anyone. And while odds are good that no one will miss the old bastard, we have no actual guarantee that no one will come looking for him if he doesn't show up to poker night or the tobacco spitting contest or whatever it is that old coots do for fun. So the safest thing to do is _leave now_. Pack your bag. Let's go."

Sam rolled his eyes and stomped into the house.

Dean wanted to punch something, but settled for blasting music on the car's sound system while he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

He started to worry about the drain he might be putting on the battery and switched the music off. He stared pointedly at the house waiting for Sam to take the hint and finally he gave up and went in after him. He wasn't expecting trouble, but he took a knife just in case, plain steel—it only occurred to him at that moment that he'd lost the silver knife in the lake, one more thing to be pissed about.

Sam was in the bedroom, talking on his cellphone, and packing one-handed in the slowest, most inefficient way possible. Dean pocketed the knife, not wanting Sam to see that he'd been worried.

He flushed at the sight of the bed. Right there on that bed. He and Sam. It was unreal. And for a moment he had thought, he had actually _believed_.... 

"It's just for a couple of days," Sam said into the phone. "We'll be leaving Friday. _Early_ Friday, I promise. Yeah, yeah. We've got an appointment that morning and then we're leaving town. Yeah. Sure. Thanks."

When Sam hung up the phone, Dean flung his hands up in the universal signal for _What the hell?_ "

"Steve is making us burgers tonight, waffles tomorrow morning, and ribs tomorrow night. We're on our own for lunch."

"Who? What?"

"Steve. Y'know, 'Hodor.' You were right; the guy is really lonely."

"We are not crashing on Steve's hide-a-bed. One, we aren't stopping for the night until Pennsylvania is well in our rearview mirror. Two, even if we were staying, we have enough money to get a motel room without bothering Steve. And three…" Dean's brain shut down as he watched Sam try to cram the towels into his bag. "Why are you stealing Old Ned's towels?"

"One, I managed to get us appointments at a clinic in Pittsburgh in an hour and a half but they won't have the results back until Friday so we're staying. Two, a full STD panel is 'only' $199 _each_ which nearly maxes out our second-to-last credit card so, no, we can't afford a motel. And three, as you pointed out, this could be considered a crime scene so I thought we should take our DNA with us."

"Oh."

 _DNA,_ Dean thought dizzily, as he watched Sam give up and simply drape the towels tainted with _their DNA_ over his bag.

"You got your shampoo and everything out of the bathroom?" Dean asked

"Yup," Sam said, hoisting the bag onto his shoulder. "Let's get to Pittsburgh."

Dean nodded and walked back out to the car. His anger was instantly gone and it had been replaced with only mortification and gut-wrenching emptiness. Sam was following through on his threat to drag Dean to a clinic for an STD screening and Dean couldn't even blame him. He had no idea what his status was—it had been a busy year—and yet he'd gone ahead and had unprotected sex with _the_ person he was responsible for protecting.

Unprotected sex. _Sex_. With Sam. That had happened.

He drove toward Pittsburgh under clear skies, but in a mental fog.

It was like one of those vivid dreams where you wake up and for a moment you aren't sure if that thing with the mermaid was real or not and you're half tempted to check the bathtub until you're finally awake enough to realize it was all just REM's greatest hits except… this was real. That happened. That was a thing that had actually happened. The horrible part—the _wrong_ part—was that it wasn't going to ever happen again because they'd lost the damned stone and Dean was still having a little trouble wrapping his brain around that particular paradigm shift. 

"Dude, what is _wrong_ with you?" Sam asked when Dean almost missed the turn to Route 28.

"Aren't _you_ pissed off that we lost the stone?" Dean asked. He was so sure that Sam agreed with him that he could already imagine Sam saying, _Of course, I'm upset, but there's nothing we can do about it, so get over it already._

Dean was completely unprepared when what Sam actually said was, "Honestly? No. It was kind of a nuisance. The results were so unpredictable that it was nerve wracking never knowing what to expect. We spent as much time testing it as we did successfully utilizing it. I mean, obviously, if we had it back, I'd still use it. A good hunter will use any tool available, but I'm not exactly going to lose any sleep over it."

"I suppose when you put it that way," Dean said, trailing off, not trusting himself to say more.

Dean became hyper-aware of the road. The lines on the faded asphalt, the green grass at the edges, the blue Adopt-a-Highway signs letting you know who sponsored that mile of litter removal. He let everything else blur out. Nothing mattered but the road and the car and all he needed to do was keep his hands tight on the steering wheel and everything would be okay.

They got to the clinic right on schedule, but they were still stuck in the waiting room for more than twenty minutes. After checking which credit card they were going to be putting this under, Dean filled out the name on his form as "Dean Bouchard" and Sam used the same last name. That meant the nurse was going to know they were related, which was weird. How many people walked into the clinic with a sibling wanting a full STD panel? 

He was handing the clipboard back to the nurse when Sam leaned in and said, "You checked the wrong box." Sam scratched out the checkmark Dean had made next to "single" and checked "married" instead. Startled, Dean glanced at Sam's form and saw that he had claimed to be married as well. _Oh._ They weren't pretending to be the Bouchard _brothers_ , they were pretending to be a _couple_.

Yet, despite Sam's best finagling, the clinic insisted on separating them during the actual testing and associated lecture. The test itself was quick. Dean could have done without the lecture part though. He wasn't seventeen. 

Sam wanted to stop on the way to Steve's and grab some booze since, as he put it, "If we need antibiotics, this will be our last chance for a beer for a week," which Dean thought was unnecessarily pessimistic. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania turned out to have the most confusing alcohol laws that Dean had ever encountered and there didn't seem to be _any_ places to buy beer on the way. Steve assured them that he already had the fridge stocked and that they should just head on over.

"It's gonna be girl beer. I promise you," Dean muttered, but he was tired and hungry and defeated. 

It was girl beer. 

It wasn't that it tasted bad; the cider one was actually kind of nice. But he couldn't get a buzz going at all and he could have used a buzz right then. The burgers were pretty good though. 

Steve worked in insurance and hated his job, but apparently loved _complaining_ about his job… and his coworkers and his customers and also his brother-in-law… and he kept the conversation going completely solo without so much as a passing inquiry as to why Sam and Dean were driving through Pittsburgh again. 

"Gee, I wonder why he doesn't have any friends," Dean muttered sarcastically after Steve turned in for the night. 

Sam shushed him, but snickered despite himself. "Shut up, man. We don't have any friends either." He kicked at Dean's boots, nudging him off the couch.

"Only because all of our friends have been killed. That's different." Dean stood and helped Sam open up the sleeper sofa. "We have loads of friends if you count the dead ones."

"Do you even listen to the words that come out of your mouth?" Sam asked as he toed off his boots.

Dean sat down in Steve's armchair to take his own boots off. "I'll ask Cas to see about booking us a party suite in the afterlife. None of this solitary heaven crap. That's boring."

"Oh, please," Sam said. "You'd last three days tops before you snuck off to some quiet place to hide from the crowd."

"Well, yeah, I don't mean party twenty-four/seven, but you don't want to spend eternity in isolation, do you? I mean…"

Dean looked up and completely lost his train of thought. Sam took his jeans off. Sam took his shirt off. Sam got into bed wearing only a thin T-shirt, boxers, and a lot of exposed flesh.

Which was 100% normal. The weather was warm enough. No need to wear sweats or fleece pajamas or any crap like that. Sometimes when it was really hot and if the motel air conditioning really sucked, Sam was even known to peel off the T-shirt and boxers before morning. There wasn't anything even remotely unusual about it.

So there was no reason whatsoever for Dean's heart to be thudding in his chest.

Dean turned out the light before shucking his own clothes. No need for Sam to see the slight tent of his boxers. It wasn't like he was actually _hard_ or anything. His dick was just a little _perkier_ than it ought to be under the circumstances. 

Dean settled himself under the covers and tried not to think about the fact that Sam was right there beside him.

"So, what do you want to do tomorrow?" Sam asked. "We're on our own while Steve's at work."

"Sleep sounds good," Dean said, hoping Sam would take a hint.

"I think I'm gonna hit the pool again," Sam said. "You need to use more sunscreen this time."

Of course, Dean's dick got even perkier at the thought of Sam in swim trunks, barechested and wet. It was going to be a long night.

"Sleep now. Deal with tomorrow, tomorrow."

Sam shifted and the metal sofa-frame squeaked. "Fold-out sofas are the worst," he mumbled. "No good for sleep. No good for sex."

"Good _night_ , Sam." Jeez, the guy had no idea what he was doing to Dean.

"Night," Sam said and he reached over and _patted Dean on the shoulder_ which should not have been remotely hot at all. Like at all. It was going to be a _such_ a long night.

♥ ♥ ♥

They awoke to the smoke alarm because it turned out Steve's awesome burger-making skills did not translate to even marginally competent waffle-making skills. Dean went for a piss while Sam and Steve tried to air out the apartment and by the time Dean wandered back into the kitchen, the waffle maker looked like a lava-encrusted relic from Pompeii. He didn't feel like it was his problem to clean it, so Dean shoved it aside and made everyone French toast instead. Steve was apologetic, but Sam kept gushing about how French toast was the best thing _ever_ and Dean had to keep making more until they went through all of Steve's bread.

The entire time that Sam was eating, Dean had to fight the urge to ruffle his hair or wipe syrup off his mouth or just generally be way too inappropriate with his little brother. It was as if once that line had been crossed—that line that had once seemed like an impenetrable force field, a line that could never be crossed, any more than you could walk through a brick wall, any more than you would even _think_ about _trying_ to walk through a brick wall—he could barely remember where the line had been. 

Steve left for work with promises of legendary ribs for dinner to make up for breakfast and Sam was in swim trunks before Dean could blink.

He planned to let Sam go swimming by himself, but Sam pouted until he gave in and joined him. He drew the line at letting Sam help with the suntan lotion and made sure he had it slathered on everywhere himself so Sam would have no reason to touch him. Sam spent most of his time in the pool just sort of floating around being mostly-naked and gorgeous—and splashing Dean whenever he swam too close—while Dean swam laps to keep his body distracted.

It was beautiful torture and Dean didn't think it was possible to be that happy and that miserable at the same time. Sam was the center of his universe and Sam, in this moment at least, was safe and happy, laughing and enjoying himself. Dean couldn't wish for more. Dean _shouldn't_ wish for more. But Dean had had that taste of more. 

God, he was too old to be going emo.

He didn't burn this time, but Sam still teased him about his freckles and claimed Dean's cheeks were turning pink which Dean suspected had nothing to do with the sun at all, but he let it slide.

Turned out Steve wasn't making ribs, but buying ribs from some takeout place, which meant there were no more incidents with the smoke alarm. They left early Friday morning before breakfast because Dean was anxious to get back to his own bed, in his own bedroom, which he didn't have to share with Sam.

They got to the clinic right as it opened, but despite having the first appointments of the day, they still had to wait forever in the waiting room while Dean grumbled about how they could already be home by now if the damn clinic would just _call_ them with their results instead of insisting on doing it face-to-face. Sam still tried to convince the nurse that they were married so they could just get this over with in a joint visit and the nurse still insisted that the clinic's privacy policies were for their own protection. 

Death was not a re-set button. Or demons weren't immune to STDs. 

Sam tested clean, but due to "recent exposure" was given an antibiotic prescription just the same as Dean and they both got a lecture about no sex for a week. Dean tried to tell them that it was not an issue, but the doctor—still under the false impression that Dean was married—insisted that reinfection was a risk even among monogamous partners and emphasized that there must be no sex at all until they had both completed their full course of antibiotics.

Sam, to his credit, didn't say _I told you so_ and—other than giving him directions to the pharmacy and then setting his phone alarm to remind them when their doses were due—they didn't even talk about it. 

The medication was supposed to be taken on an empty stomach so they didn't stop for breakfast until they got to the Indiana-Ohio border where they found a little diner that served sweet potato pancakes.

They talked about possible cases. Sam had leads on a couple of hauntings, something in the cornfields near the Saskatchewan-Manitoba-North Dakota border. Or maybe it was wheat fields. Dean didn't really pay attention. Something involving fields. There was some sort of voodoo thing in New Orleans. Frankly it all sounded like the status quo and not worth getting involved in, but Dean knew they had to do _something_ so he just went with the one that sounded the coolest and, hence, he and Sam decided to go to Yellowstone to check out a bear that was a possible Skinwalker or maybe possessed. Kansas was on the way, and the bear wasn't an urgent problem, so they stopped at the bunker for a few days first. 

Dean finally gave in and called Castiel to see if there was a chance the angel could still fish the stone out of the bottom of the lake, but Cas only confirmed Sam's theory that it appeared to have been obliterated along with the monster. He at least de-gasolined the library for them so it wasn't a complete waste, but just when Dean thought they'd managed to get through a visit without Castiel doing anything weird, Cas went and asked about Sam and Dean's sex life. Just straight up _asked_ about it. 

"Your interactions with Sam seem surprisingly distant considering the new sexual element in your relationship. Are things not going well?"

Dean made it absolutely clear to Cas that he was not allowed to ask questions like that. Dean and Sam were not having sex… Okay, _once_ , but… _extenuating circumstances_... and it was _never happening again_ … No, not because he hadn't enjoyed it. He'd enjoyed the hell out of it. _Don't you dare repeat that to Sam!_ No, they weren't doing it again, because it was _wrong_ and also… also Sam had made it clear that he didn't want to… Yes, as a matter of fact, Sam _had_ said that and… and… 

"What part of _'You are not allowed to ask questions like that'_ did I not make clear?!" Dean finally shouted. 

Castiel's brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Sam!" Dean yelled down the hallway. "Are you packed? We should head out before it gets much later."

Sam, of course, had to question absolutely everything. Did they have to leave today? What was the hurry? _Oh, hi, Cas._ Was Cas going along too? Could they get a cabin?

He was fairly efficient despite the running commentary and they pulled out onto the road just fifteen minutes later. 

Dean had it in his head that they could get to Yellowstone before midnight, but he'd failed to take into account all the road construction. They ended up getting a motel room near the Wyoming border. 

It was the first time they'd shared a motel room since _before_. They'd slept in the same bed, if you could call a squeaky sofa-bed a _bed_ , but that was Steve's living room with zero privacy. This was the first time since the lake that they'd shared a room, just the two of them, alone. Sam casually peeled off his shirt on the way to the shower. He was still yammering about wanting to rent a cabin and Dean just marveled at how utterly _normal_ Sam sounded. So, at least, he wasn't traumatized or anything by their little foray into sexual taboos.

"Or at least a _nice_ hotel room for a change, y'know," Sam said, raising his voice over the spray of the shower. 

Dean had to walk over to the bathroom door if he wanted to have a chance of Sam hearing his reply. "I don't think that's in our budget."

"We just got a new card," Sam reminded him.

"You know that's not how money actually works, college boy."

Given a choice, Dean would much rather get by on odd jobs and pool hustling than on credit card fraud. Credit cards had once seemed to be a perfect never-ending source of money, but the transition to adulthood had brought an unpleasant awareness that it wasn't actually the banks that got screwed on those deals. In a pinch, when the job required it, Dean didn't hesitate using bogus cards, but he had a firm belief that luxury items had to be paid for with legit money. Luxury items, in Dean's view, included nice hotels.

"Just this weekend," Sam said, stepping out of the bathroom all steamy and naked. Not 100% naked. The towel around his narrow hips hid a little, but Dean's favorite part was the set of bare shoulders and he'd already figured out that Sam's favorite part was the chest—well, maybe second-favorite. Sam's favorite body part probably was hidden by the towel. Dean could barely remember what they were talking about. "I just want to stay somewhere nice, just this one weekend. What do you say?"

"You know where we can stay that's nice? The bunker. We do the job. We go home."

"Why are you always in a hurry? You were in a hurry to leave the bunker. Now you're in a hurry to get back to the bunker." Sam dropped his towel and pulled on a clean pair of boxers. Dean quickly looked away, but the vision of Sam's white moon ass was unavoidable in his peripheral vision.

Dean skipped the shower and just went straight to bed, telling Sam he was tired and refused to discuss Sam's request for a "nice" motel.

♥ ♥ ♥

The Yellowstone bear turned out to be elderly and harmless as far as the locals could observe. It was a weird bear, but probably not possessed. Probably not a Skinwalker though Sam held onto the possibility that it might have been a _former_ shapeshifter who was now mainly just a weird bear.

"You think it _was_ a person?" Dean said, watching the bear through binoculars from a safe distance. The bear was raiding a campsite while the campers were off hiking or something. It was methodical in its search, _putting back_ items it rejected.

"Lore around the world talks about humans who can become bears, but a consistent element in many stories is that every time they take bear form they become more and more bearlike until they can no longer change back."

"So it's stuck as a bear?"

"Or it doesn't even remember that it was a person and doesn't remember how to change back or doesn't _want_ to change back?"

"Huh."

"Or it's just a bear. I think the popular theory is that a lot of those bear myths originated specifically because bears, even normal bears, often walk upright with a humanlike gait, are eerily smart, and can be mistaken for a person in poor light."

"Especially if you're drunk enough," Dean agreed. "Oh, score!" The bear found an ice chest full of hamburger patties. It dragged the chest into a shady spot under a tree and sat down. "Oh, and it's got beer!" Dean added.

"You know I read somewhere that bears will actually show brand preferences and only open more cans of the brands they like," Sam said.

"See, that's the life. That's how I want to retire."

"You want to be a bear?"

"All-you-can-eat berries, bonus burgers and fried chicken and beer at the campsites, nap in the woods whenever you want. Be a bear with me, Sammy. You can be my Boo-Boo and we'll live out our days raiding _pic-a-nic_ baskets."

"Excuse me," Sam said. "I would be Yogi Bear. _You_ would be Boo-Boo. Boo-Boo's the short one."

"Whatever," Dean said, ending the conversation. "The bear is eating better than we are and it's making me hungry. Let's go get some grub and find a place to crash for the night."

Yellowstone was not the ideal place to find an affordable dining experience and they'd ended up grabbing criminally-overpriced sandwiches at a convenience store, thinking it would tide them over until they could find _real_ food. They were well off of the park's official land and still hadn't found a motel with any vacancies or any promising restaurants. 

Sam wanted to turn around and go back to an insanely-expensive lodge that he'd found online with his phone. "They've got a vacancy, Dean. I could reserve it right now before someone else snaps it up."

"Or we hit the Motel 6 in Casper," Dean said, pointing at the road ahead.

"Casper? So we're just leaving?"

"It's a _bear_. Probably a regular bear. Maybe, just _maybe_ a former-human kind of bear. But still just a bear. There is no job here."

"Okay, agreed, but we could still stay the night _somewhere nice_ before we head home."

"What is it with you and nice hotels?"

"Dean, have you forgotten what today is?" Sam asked and Dean suddenly had the feeling that this was a trick question. It wasn't Sam's birthday. No holidays that he could think of. 

"Friday?" Dean said, sure Sam would be annoyed.

"Exactly!" Sam said.

"So in honor of the traditional Monday to Friday work week that we don't actually participate in, you want to get an expensive motel?"

"Dean," Sam said in measured tones, "have you been taking your antibiotics when I've reminded you to?"

"Yes," Dean said warily, unclear on the change of subject.

"All of them? Every dose?"

"Yes. I took every dose."

"So you took your last dose last night, correct?"

"Yeah. And?"

"Great. You had me worried there for a minute."

"Sam, what are we talking about?"

"We both took our last dose of antibiotics last night," Sam said as if that meant anything to Dean. "That means it's been a week."

"Yeah," Dean said, still not really following Sam's logic. "So?"

"So, the seven days are up."

"The seven days?"

"No sex for seven days," Sam said. "We took our first dose last Friday morning, which makes _this_ Friday the eighth day. We're allowed to have sex today."

If Dean were a lesser man, he would have driven the car right off the road then and there. Fortunately, Dean Winchester had nerves of steel and he was barely even shaking when he pulled off the road into a private drive about a mile farther down the road after Sam's announcement. He pulled around behind a shed that blocked the Impala from the view of the road. The building looked abandoned and thus posed a minor threat of collapse, but that also decreased their chance of being interrupted since it didn't look like anyone lived nearby.

"Dean?" Sam asked, looking confused at the stop.

"Sam, when you said you didn't really care that the stone had been destroyed because you thought it was a _nuisance_ … you _weren't_ talking about the _kissing_ being a nuisance? You _weren't_ saying that you really didn't care if we never had to kiss again?"

"Wow, Dad must have dropped you on your head when you were a baby _a lot_ ," Sam said. 

Dean just stared at Sam open-mouthed for a moment and couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"You know what, Dean, I _am_ glad that I never _have to_ kiss you again. Because I don't want to kiss just because of some magic ritual. I want to kiss you _without_ knowing you're peeking at the stone to see what color it is now. I want you to kiss me without thinking about anything else."

"Oh."

"You've been avoiding me all week because you thought we broke up?" Sam asked.

"You've been avoiding _me_ all week, too!"

"Because I've been climbing the walls not being able to touch you!" Sam insisted. 

"Back seat, now."

"Yeah, okay."

It was dusk. Daylight was still hanging on, but the sun was definitely on its way down. They were close enough to the road that they could hear cars passing by, but the shed blocked them from view on that side. Trees blocked them from view on the other. Someone would basically have to walk right up to the car to catch them and Dean was willing to risk those odds.

Sam went straight to the back seat, but Dean opened the trunk and rifled around until he found Sam's lube and a condom packet. "We are not messing up the upholstery," Dean insisted tossing the condom at Sam.

♥ ♥ ♥

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, my beta-reader thought this was a good place to end the story. Fortunately for y'all, I know my audience. One more chapter to go...


	11. Chapter 11

♥ ♥ ♥ 

Sam let the condom fall onto the seat, his attention instead on getting his boots and jeans off. His underpants slid off in the same motion as the jeans and by the time Dean had climbed in and closed the door, Sam was already stark naked from the waist down. Dean was torn between getting his own clothes off and getting his hands on Sam and, for a brief moment, hands-on-Sam won. He ran his fingers up Sam's bare sides, from his hips to way up under his shirt and then swept his palms over Sam's chest and nipples and delighted in the way Sam arched and writhed in response.

Sam whimpered, "Pants. Off. Now," and started undoing Dean's jeans which would immediately be a tangled mess if Dean didn't get his boots off first so Dean quickly squirmed away to take care of that.

"Whoa. Shoes first. Easy, man."

He reached down to untie his hiking boots, but Sam just followed his motion and started gnawing and slobbering on his neck, his wandering hands still working at Dean's fly. So there was a moment when Dean had one boot on and one boot off and Sam had one hand down Dean's pants and so he just sort of gave up and leaned back and let Sam shove his tongue in and out of his mouth. Sam was a clumsy mess and the best kisser in the universe all at the same time. It didn't make a lot of sense, but Dean wasn't about to question it.

Finally, it was Sam who broke the kiss to get Dean all the way undressed. Dean worked at getting his remaining hiking boot off and Sam took care of everything else and somewhere in the flurry of flying cotton, Sam's shirts came off as well and they were both fully nude. 

Dean leaned in for a glorious naked kiss before panting in Sam's ear, "Condom."

Sam nodded. Picked up the condom, tore it free from the package, and reached for Dean's dick.

"Whoa! What are you doing?"

"I'm putting the condom on you. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"But I thought you were gonna… I mean… that worked pretty well before, right?"

"You promised," Sam reminded him. "Last time, you said we'd switch places next time."

"I don't mind taking it from you, Sammy." And, okay, _I don't mind_ was a hell of an understatement.

"You _promised_ ," Sam repeated. "And I want it."

"Fuck, are we actually fighting over who gets to be the girl?"

"Nobody is _'being the girl'_. There is no girl here. And even if being on the receiving end of anal counted as being a girl, there's no shame in that. Seriously, later, when I can think straight, we are having a very long talk about heteronormative labeling and how offensive it is."

"Oh, my God, you're just making words up now," Dean said, but he didn't protest again when Sam rolled the condom on for him.

Sam gave him a quick kiss and then turned and crawled halfway over the front bench seat, which confused Dean for a moment until he realized he now had the perfect view of Sam's ass. "Lube me up good," Sam said, spreading his legs out across the width of the backseat. 

Dean didn't need to be told twice. He squeezed out a generous line of lube along Sam's crack and smeared it up and down between his cheeks and then smeared it _all over_ his ass cheeks as well, which wasn't functional, but, God, his ass all shiny like that was beautiful. 

"You know the lube goes on the _inside_ , right?" Sam asked.

Another squeeze of lube back at the target and then he slipped his hand under and forward and got Sam's balls and dick all slicked up as well.

"Dude, you're supposed to be lubing _your_ dick," Sam reminded him, but he was rubbing against Dean's hand in a very encouraging way and he didn't sound upset. 

Dean brought his fingers back to Sam's anus and very gently pressed one finger inside. He wriggled it experimentally, asking, "Good?"

"More," Sam panted.

Dean slipped his finger in and out a few times before sliding in two fingers, this time making the effort to search out… there, that was it. He probably could have guessed that he'd found the right spot based on the feel of it, but Sam didn't leave him with any doubt at all.

"Yes! Right there! More! Harder!"

"Patience," Dean said, kissing Sam's left butt cheek for no particular reason.

"Fuck patience. Do that with your dick. Hit that spot with your dick. Only harder and faster and _now_."

"All right, already, but you need to shuffle back here a little because I can't phase through the roof of the car like a ghost."

Sam shifted back alarmingly quickly, nearly landing in Dean's lap which could have been very unpleasant given his vulnerable state. "Dude, easy! Do not do anything in this car that you don't want to explain in an emergency room!"

"Sorry." Sam braced his chest over the front seat and more carefully wriggled his hindquarters back.

Dean guided his dick into position and steadied Sam's hip with one hand. "Okay, _slowly_ slide back."

Sam lowered himself gently as Dean carefully eased himself inside.

"Oh, yeah," they both moaned out together and Dean couldn't help but laugh.

Sam was still partially hunched over the front seat, letting the bench seat take some of his weight, but his thighs were still tensed with the effort of maintaining the awkward straddle. Dean took hold of Sam's hips with both hands and began rolling his own hips up in a nice easy rhythm. 

"Faster!" Sam begged. "Harder!"

"Patience," Dean repeated.

" _'Bottom picks the tempo,'_ " Sam quoted.

" _Technically_ , I'm the one on the bottom."

"Fucking jerk!" Sam growled and Dean couldn't even bring himself to call Sam a bitch in response.

"Come on. Ease back, Sammy. Take the weight off your legs. Just sit on me. Okay?"

Sam followed instructions well enough, but he was writhing and panting and Dean could tell he was a little bit miserable from the lack of friction. But sliding back into Dean's lap gave Dean a perfect chance to give Sam a reach-around with one hand and to play with Sam's nipples with the other. Sam tilted his head back so far that his hair was tickling the side of Dean's face and Dean took advantage of all the exposed neck. God, licking Sam's neck was wonderful. Sam moaned and groaned and grunted and the way he clenched and unclenched around Dean's dick was so fucking fantastic.

"Atta boy, Sammy. Good boy."

"I swear I'm going to start calling you 'Deannie' if you don't knock that shit off," Sam growled.

"You can call me 'Dean-o' if you want to," Dean panted in Sam's ear. "Remember when you used to call me Dean-o? You thought I was like a cool greaser."

Sam laughed in between grunts. "Dude, I was calling you 'Dino' after the Flintstone's _dog_." 

"Fuck you, man."

" _Please do!_ Because _this_? This is not fucking. This is some kind of yogic ass massage. For someone who makes so many Samantha jokes, you fuck like a ninety-year-old woman who's afraid of throwing her hip out."

Before Dean could voice his justified indignation, Sam growled again, deep and rumbling like a wild animal and, as incredibly hot as teasing Sam was—and it was _so very hot_ —he knew he owed the guy a little more action.

"Okay, okay, okay. But it's not going to work in this position okay. We gotta figure something else out."

Sam got off Dean's lap and Dean might have whimpered just a tiny bit when Sam slid off his dick. 

"You at that end," Sam said, shoving Dean to one side of the backseat. 

Sam, meanwhile, got down on his hands and one knee on the floorboard and curled one leg up on the backseat. That meant that Dean was going to have to kneel on the floorboard as well, which wasn't exactly the most comfortable option. They really should have waited until they got a few more towns over and could find an affordable motel. Or screw that. If he had it to do all over again, he would have let Sam get that overpriced suite at the lodge. A big soft bed, maybe with one of those brass bed frames that Sam had described. Maybe a place with a hot tub. Maybe a romantic fireplace. He owed Sam that. He'd have to find the fanciest, most romantic hotel in the country and make this up to Sam.

But in the meantime, this is where they were and if he had to get down on the floorboard to get Sam off, he'd get down on the floorboard.

He nudged his way back inside. Even with Sam twisted at a strange, half-sideways angle, they both had a better range of motion this way and Dean was able to make nice full thrusts now.

"Faster!" Sam repeated.

Dean picked up the pace, but he had to lean forward to avoid braining himself on the roof of the car. That meant holding on to Sam's ribcage and shifting some of his weight forward onto him.

"Just let me know if it's too much," he said.

"More!"

"Are you sure?"

"More! Harder!"

There was no way to avoid the sounds at that tempo, the wet squelchy smacks of slapping flesh. Dean had always been just a tiny bit self-conscious of the more vulgar sounds of sex. Not that _he_ minded, but it was probably a turn off for the ladies. When he planned ahead, he liked to have a little background music playing to at least partially mask the queefs and toots. But as the obscene soundtrack got more grotesque and comical, Sam just got more and more vocal and it was hard not to appreciate that this pace was really getting Sam off.

"Yes! Yes! Right there! Oh, God! Just like that! Fuck me! Yes! Yeah! Yeahyeahyeahyayayaya!!! Okay. Whoa. Whoa! Stop, Dean, stop. Safeword! I'm done. Whoa."

Dean brought his hips to a stuttering halt and Sam wriggled free. "Sorry," Dean said, ashamed that he hadn't been able to figure out on his own the Sam had already crested his wave.

"We, uh, we didn't think this through," Sam said a bit sheepishly.

"Huh?"

"One condom. Two dicks. The upholstery…"

"You got spunk on my car?" Dean asked, hazily, still a little shocked that Sam had gotten off first when he was the one getting the most friction on his dick.

"It's okay," Sam assured him. "I'll take care of it." Sam popped the door and _got out of the car_. He fished through Dean's pockets for the car keys and then opened the trunk, which showed a decided lack of priorities because Dean was still hard and right on the edge.

Sam came back with a towel, one of Old Ned's towels actually, though it had been through the wash since the last time they'd used it. 

Dean gave another look around to reassure himself that they had no witnesses. The sky was darkening and if there were any neighbors, they should see lights by now, but all Dean could see were shadows cast by the occasional passing headlights beyond the shed. As long as Sam didn't mind walking around outside bare-ass naked, Dean guessed there was no harm in it.

Dean eased himself onto the seat from the floor. His knees were imprinted with the texture of the floormats, but he was much more concerned with the state of his neglected dick. "Sam, please. I know what I said before, but we can clean the car later. Please."

Sam wiped the semen off the seat anyway before reaching for Dean's dick. He recoiled before making contact though and wrinkled his nose.

"What now?" Dean asked.

"You know, the problem with used condoms is there's really no such thing as a clean side."

"Dude, it barely even counts as used," Dean said, pointing at his erection.

"Yeah, but, it's got ass all over it."

"Those are your own damn ass-cooties, princess! And you had your _tongue_ up my butt last time!"

"Yeah, but I washed you out myself first. You didn't even give me a five minute warning. Can I take it off of you, please?"

"Fine. Whatever. I'll do anything you want, Sam. Just please help me out here."

Sam peeled the condom off of Dean and tossed it out of the open car door.

"Litterbug." Dean had only been teasing, but Sam got back out of the car, picked the condom back up off the dirt, and made a show of putting it in the small trash bag that they kept in the front seat.

Dean tried to remember why he hadn't murdered Sam at least seventeen different times by now.

Sam didn't get back in the car and instead just glanced back in through the open car door and looked Dean over. Finally, he asked, "Do we have to do this _in_ the car? Because, the weather's kind of nice tonight and it would be a lot less cramped out here."

"What did you have in mind?" Dean asked. Sam had finished, so, looking at things from a logistical perspective, Dean hadn't expected more than a handjob at this point anyway.

Sam reached in and grabbed the towel. He folded it up and placed it in the dirt outside and then _got down on his knees_. He made a show of licking his lips as he said, "Well, if you were to stand up, I might be able to do a little _something_ for you."

Given Sam's somewhat mediocre oral sex skills, Dean didn't think it would actually be enough to get him off, but he had no objection to letting him try. After all, he had to practice if he wanted to get better, right?

Dean climbed out of the car with yet one more self-conscious glance around, but after reassuring himself that they were still alone, he positioned himself in front of Sam and leaned back on the car for support.

Sam immediately started teasing him with his tongue, balls to tip and all around with no clear pattern. It was hot and tickled at the same time. He was so freaking hard but all the licking and sucking did was taunt him with how much he needed more. He was also dizzy as hell with all of the blood flow in his body focused far away from his brain. 

"Sammy, please, baby, I need… I need you. I need you here."

"I'm right here."

"I need you _here_ ," Dean said, tugging on Sam's shoulders, willing him to understand that he needed to be up on his feet even when Dean didn't have the vocabulary to say it himself. When that didn't work, he tugged gently on Sam's hair. "Please. Here. Up here."

Sam got to his feet and Dean wrapped himself around him in a desperate embrace, pulling him into a soft wet kiss. Sam might not be great at head, but he was officially the world's best kisser. With a nudity bonus. Dean couldn't breathe. He broke away gasping.

"Tell me what you want, Dean. I'll do anything for you, okay. You just have to tell me what you need."

"Need _you_ ," Dean insisted petulantly. "Here. Everywhere. I want, I want you to fuck me again. I want your fingers up my ass and your mouth on my balls, sucking my dick, licking it, licking my nipples, tongue up my ass, fucking me with your dick. I want you to hold me down. I want to suck you off. I just want to kiss you forever. I want you to hold me. I love how strong you are. It turns me on so much when you lift me. I think you're stronger than I am. I can still take you in a fight, don't get me wrong," Dean added, because it was important to have some things on record. "Because I'm wilier and I fight dirty, but I think you're stronger and that's hot as fuck."

Dean braced himself against the car and wrapped his legs around Sam and Sam let him. Sam took his weight and even hoisted him up higher, probably just needing to keep Dean away from his own sensitive dick, but it was _exactly_ what Dean had just been saying. So hot.

They kissed like that for a long time, Dean's dick rubbing up against Sam's perfect abs, but finally Sam shifted and set Dean down on the Impala's trunk. Dean wrapped his legs even tighter around Sam to make it clear that he did not approve of being put down.

"Dean, you need to focus and make a decision. I only have two hands and one tongue. My penis is officially off the table for the immediate future. You need to pick _at most_ two things that you want me to do to you at any given moment and they cannot involve simultaneously being at opposite ends of your body, time travel, or defying the laws of gravity. Okay?"

That seemed incredibly unfair to Dean to limit his options like that. He refused to let go of Sam with his legs, dick still rubbing against Sam's abdomen. "This," Dean finally said, unable to come up with anything better. "I want this. You. This. Forever. Kissing. Naked. Flesh." He rubbed a thumb over one of Sam's nipples, but Sam only flinched away. Nipple-Guy was apparently sensitive post-orgasm. "Just let me rub off on you. I can get off from this. I know I can."

Sam didn't seem to believe him and slipped a hand between them to stroke Dean off, but he at least seemed to get that the most important part was that they needed to be kissing and Dean needed to be petting Sam's hair. That last part might not have been entirely _necessary_ , but, hell, as long as it was there.

As Dean got close to orgasm, he had to break away to draw in ragged breaths and Sam whispered in his ear, "I love you, Dino."

He came all over Sam—his hand, stomach, and even some dribbling onto Sam's dick. It was probably wrong to feel proud of bodily slime. It wasn't like he'd ever gone around bragging about his boogers—well, not beyond the age of seven anyway. Yet there was something immensely satisfying about _his_ semen on Sam's body. 

"Mine," he whispered in Sam's ear.

Sam popped him on the side of the head. "You're supposed to say 'I love you, too,' asshole!"

"Mine," he repeated, laughing this time. "Mine, mine, _mine_."

Sam went and got them bottled water from the trunk and chugged the first bottle in one go. Dean was still gulping his down when Sam took a whizz right next to the car. He didn't even bother to turn his back or anything.

"Did you just piss on my car?" Dean asked.

"No"

"You did!" Dean pointed at splash marks on the rear tire. "You pissed on my car! What, you're marking your territory or something?"

"Mine," Sam echoed, laughing. He poured a second bottle of water over himself and wiped himself clean with another of Old Ned's towels. They were like the official DNA towels now. The sight was too pretty for Dean to argue with so he let it go.

They shook their clothes out and got dressed and Sam tossed the dirty towels onto the floorboards in the back to deal with later. Dean Febrezed the backseat.

"We are never having sex in the car again," Dean insisted. "That was ridiculous." 

"Sex outside wasn't so bad," Sam said.

"Fine for _you_ , Groot, but some of us were not meant to have dirt between our toes."

"If I'm Groot, that makes you Rocket," Sam said smugly. "Actually, I can kind of see that."

"Dude, I'm not Rocket. I mean, for one, Groot and Rocket never did the nasty."

"[Rule 34](https://xkcd.com/305/)."

"You're a horrible person."

"We never have sex in the car again," Sam said agreed, "But the _instant_ we get back to the bunker, we are fucking like bunnies—or raccoons as the case may be. Agreed?"

"A horrible, horrible person. And agreed."

♥ ♥ ♥

They barely made it out of Wyoming before they had sex in the car again. 

Somewhere near the Colorado-Nebraska border (Dean lost track of which side), he'd tried to cut around a construction delay that was made all the worse by a rainstorm and they ended up on a back road that had petered down to dirt tracks, which became a useless morass of mud in the rain. So they'd waited out the rain by trading blowjobs in the front seat with the agreement that they both had to swallow, because upholstery. Dean decided Sam might have some potential in that area after all, but he still had to give himself a little assist by hand to finish the deal. 

They did not fuck like bunnies the instant they got back to the bunker either.

They were in the home stretch and had made it as far as Norton, Kansas, when they stumbled across a chili cook-off. One flat fee for an all-you-can-eat pass good at _all_ of the booths. Sam warned Dean that he had a choice to make, because Sam vowed that he wasn't going anywhere _near_ Dean's ass for a _week_ if he bought a ticket. 

Dean bought a ticket. 

So Sam bought a ticket and then Sam ate twice as much as Dean did. 

And then, to avoid slow death by suffocation, they'd had to ride the rest of the way home with the windows wide open even when it started to rain again.

It was disgusting.

Dean had never been happier in his life.

  
♥ ♥ ♥  
THE END  
♥ ♥ ♥  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so many thoughts about the writing process of this that I ended up typing ~~[a ridiculously long LiveJournal post about it](http://b1uemorpho.livejournal.com/54800.html).~~
> 
> I've moved to Dreamwidth. A copy of [the ridiculously long meta post](http://oldtoadwoman.dreamwidth.org/35988.html) is now there.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to [Amilyn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Amilyn/works) for proofreading this whole story despite this not being her thing or even her fandom.
> 
> And thank you to everyone who read all the way to the end. (I wish AO3 had a hit counter for individual chapters, because I'd love to know how many people made it this far.) This was a fun story to write and I've loved reading all of your comments.


End file.
